The Hunt
by uzumakisunspydr
Summary: Trapped on a unexplored planet, three members of SG-1 are held at the whims of a madman. As they try to survive, their teamates are determined to do everything in their power to find them. Post Continuum. Rated T just to be on the safe side.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! I'm getting out of my anime safety zone and addressing one of my other addictions, and that is all things Stargate. This is just a fun little episodic story that's been rattling around in my poor brain for awhile, so I decided to throw it out there and test the waters a bit. Read, enjoy, and let me know how I'm doing.**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

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* * *

_

Daniel Jackson stepped from the gate apature and paused for a moment, scanning his surroundings quickly and thoroughly. DHD. Check. Can I breath? Yes. Is anything trying to kill me at this moment? No. Okay then. Onward.

The gate was smack in the middle of a bare, rocky clearing surrounded by thick shrub. There was no movement nearby. Actually, there wasn't much of anything nearby. He sighed. He didn't know how he got to be point on this mission, but luckily for him, it was not one of those missions where they got shot at as soon as they arrived.

He noticed three very important things in the first few seconds after his arrival on this unknown planet, P3X-211. First was the heat, which suddenly bore down on him without mercy. Having lived in deserts before however, this didn't faze him for long. He liked heat. The second thing did though, and that was the humidity. It was like someone had suddenly wrapped him in a blanket that had been in a dryer just long enough to get hot, but nowhere near dry. His BDU's and vest were definitely overkill in this kind of weather. The staff blast armor might be a lifesaver, but damn it was hot. The P90 clipped to his vest also seemed to absorb the heat and just make him hotter. Oh man, this was going to be a long mission if it was always like this here.

The third thing he noticed, almost too late, was the deep pit only an inch from the tip of his boots.

He was standing on a pretty standard stone ring platform. It was only a few feet high and looked like anyone of the hundreds just like it that he had landed on over the past ten years. Only, most of those'd had a series of steps going down to the ground, and not a deep,(_check that, very deep)_, dark hole where they should be. It was deep enough to make his toes curl involuntarily and tingle as he tried to maintain his balance after the momentum of exiting the gate. " That was a close one, " he muttered.

Unfortunately his relief was short lived as he suddenly remembered the reason you usually moved aside or kept walking after you come through a gate. Something impacted with his back with a soft "oof" as Vala exited the gate and collided with him. Luckily she hadn't been going that fast and was smaller than him, so he was able to dig his heels in and keep them from going over. Vala clung to his pack and peered around him, her eyes wide. "What the hell is this?"

His sentiments exactly. This hole sure hadn't been on the video from the M.A.L.P.

He had to do something quickly before the other three members of his team came through. If that happened, they were going down and there was nothing he would be able to do about it. "Vala, try to back up a bit. I'm going to radio through and try to tell the others not to come."

Luckily this was one of the few times they hadn't all come through at the same time. It went against regulations, but, just as they had been about to enter the gate, General Landry had called down to Mitchell about something from the control room, and at Daniel's inquiring look, Mitchell had waved him on. Vala had been right behind him, but Sam and Teal'c had paused to see what the General had wanted. He reached up for his radio, but just as he did, his luck ran out. Sam appeared net to Vala, and, out of deeply ingrained habit, kept walking to get out of the way of those behind her.

_"_Sam! Stop!"

Sam's eyes widened as he reached out and wrapped his arms around her to try to halt her momentum, but she had been going a lot faster than he and Vala had. He lost what little footing he'd had and, in one of those slow motion moments, he and Sam toppled into the hole with twin yelps of suprise. Vala, who'd still had a grip on his pack, was pulled in with them. Just as they entered the darkness, Daniel heard a loud metallic "thunk" from the direction of the gate that sounded vaguely familiar, but his brain immediately recognized that he had more pressing things to worry about, and he quickly filed it away for later.

They fell for a few seconds before they hit the top of what felt like a shallow ramp. Daniel landed hard on his back, Sam still clutched in his arms, but his pack cushioned him from most of the shock. He could hear Vala's indignant cry as she landed somewhere behind him. Then the real ride started. The ramp was covered in loose sand that acted almost like grease, and they began to slide. Fast. Fast enough to create enough wind to ruffle even his short hair. The tunnel was pitch black and he only had the barest sensation of walls sliding past. The only things he could feel was the floor itself sliding past under his legs, and Sam's firm grip on his arms. It was strangely not dissimilar to going through the wormhole. This went on for what seened like forever, certainly long enough for the logical part of his brain to surmise that the stargate must have been positioned at the top of a cliff, and that they were currently on their way to the bottom of said cliff. And with that thought, they landed.

Fortunately, someone had considerately left a deep pile of sand at the bottom of the slide, so when Daniel came to a very abrupt stop, Sam still on top of him, he merely had the breath knocked out of him rather than something more permanent and painful. That is until Vala arrived and landed on both of them. "Sorry!" she groaned.

They slowly untangled themselves and took stock, coughing at the dust that had been stirred up by their landing. By some small miracle, Daniel's glasses had stayed with him through it all, and he quickly pulled them off, blew the dust off of them, and put them back on. Then he discovered that there really wasn't much to see anyway.

They were in a small cave. Enough sunlight was coming in the small aperture at the front to illuminate the room a bit. At first appearance it seemed totally natural, even down to the stalactites. That is until you noticed the bars across the entrance. But there was enough time later to deal with that. First things first.

"Vala, Sam. You guys okay?"

Vala was on her feet, fastidiously brushing dust and sand off her BDU's. "Oh I'm just lovely. This is absolutely the last time we trust a gate address we just happen to find in a Lucian Alliance database."

Daniel sighed. If she was complaining, she was fine. And he couldn't quite disagree with her on that one.

"Sam?" He became alarmed when he noticed she hadn't moved. She was sitting at the base of the chute, staring up the way they had come. He went over to her and knelt in front of her, hands gripping her shoulders. "Sam? Are you alright?"

She looked at him, her face a mask of worry. "Daniel. Did you hear a noise just as we fell?"

He ran through his short term memory. "Yeah, actually. It sounded metallic." He didn't immediately recognize the significance of that and why it would upset her so much. Then, with a thought that made his blood run cold, it came to him. "Iris?"

Sam shuddered. "Cam and Teal'c should have been right behind me."

_

* * *

_

As it happened, Mitchell and Teal'c weren't right behind her.

Mitchell waved Jackson on through the gate as General Landry came on the PA. As he turned around, he caught sight of the linguist's shadow following him. Carter had paused just before the event horizon, a curious and amused expression on her face. Curious to hear what the General had to say, and probably amused at the impatience he was feeling. And probably showing.

_"_Colonel Mitchell. I don't suppose I have to remind you to be cautious. Even without Netan in charge, the Lucian Alliance is still out there and still not very fond of you."

Mitchell was heartbroken. Really.

_"_Sir, with all due respect, the Lucian Alliance is just a shadow of what it once was. Our intelligence puts them at controlling only a few systems. That, and they're down to only a handful of Ha'taks between the lot of them. After dealing with the Ori, these guys are barely an annoyance."

Landry leveled him with a look. "Even mosquito bites hurt, Colonel."

Mitchell grinned as he turned toward the gate and waved Carter through. "Mosquitoes are for smacking, sir. We'll talk to you in a few hours."

He and Teal'c started up the ramp as Carter disappeared. The familiar thrill began course through him, as it did every time he went through the gate. Especially when they were going to a planet they had never been. He already knew what would be going on when he got there. Jackson would be looking over the DHD. Vala would be near him with her gun out, covering him. Sam, having just got there, would be covering the other two, as well as the gate, waiting for he and Teal'c to arrive. That was the pleasure of having such a well oiled machine as a team. There were no surprises.

He was just about to take that last electrifying step through the event horizon when, suddenly, it wasn't there anymore. Overbalanced, he went sailing through the inert ring and would have gone over the end of the ramp if not for Teal'c's iron grip on the handle of his vest. He whirled around and glared into the control room, where a ashen faced Harriman was standing with his hand on the emergency deactivation button. "Walter! What the hell, man! That's a long drop off of there!"

" Mitchell, calm down. I'm sure Chief Master Harriman has a good reason for this." Landry gave the tech a look that suggested that he'd **better **have a good reason. "Walter?"

"I'm sorry sirs, but just as the computer recorded that Colonel Carter arrived, I got a strange signal from the destination gate. It appeared to me as if an iris had closed over it."

Mitchell couldn't help but wince. One day, in a fit of curiosity as he watched the iris slide shut, he had asked Carter what would happen to a person if they arrived at a gate that was closed. Carter had given him a serious look. "Like a bug on a windshield, Cam." Ouch.

"I take back anything I've ever said about you, Walter. Damn fast thinking, man."

"Indeed. We are grateful Chief Mastersergeant Harriman." Teal'c inclined his head toward the control room window. Harriman slumped back in his chair.

By this time Landry had descended from the control room and was walking through the door of the gate room as Mitchell and Teal'c stepped off the ramp. "I wanted you to be careful, but usually the trouble doesn't start until after you go through the gate. Although, I should'nt be suprised anymore with you lot. "

"Can we try redialing the planet? Maybe the iris on that side is down now." Mitchell said. He was wondering just what was happening to the rest of his team right now. There were two possibilities. One, they were standing around, looking at the gate, scratching their heads and wondering what the hell had happened. They could also be pretty worried about he and Teal'c right now. _Bug on a windshield. _He shuddered again_. _Or, and this was likely considering who it was over there, namely Jackson the trouble magnet, they were having issues of some sort.

Landry looked into the control room and nodded to Harriman. The gate began to spin as the address was dialed. Mitchell didn't know he had been holding his breath until the seventh chevron failed to connect, when he let it out with a whoosh. He looked at Landry. "I guess that's a no."

Harriman's voice came over the com. "Now the gate is simply not connecting. It's almost like it's been taken off the grid. Like it doesn't exist."

"Crap." Mitchell straightened up and addressed the General. "Permission to borrow the car, sir."

"Normally I'd say yes, but unfortunately the Odyssey isn't in this system at the moment. She's backing up SG-3 at the moment on a humanitarian mission. A system's sun is failing, and it has a planet with a small human population that we're relocating."

"Well, surly we know someone else with a ship we can use. An Al'kesh, a cargo ship, anything. Don't the Tok'ra owe us any favors? Anyone?"

Landry gave a patient sigh. "Colonel Mitchell -."

"Wait, you said they're relocating people?" Landry looked a bit put out by the interruption, and Mitchell was quick to apologize. Landry took a lot from him and his team, but he did have his limits. "Sorry sir. But I was thinking that they might have room for two more. We could gate out to this planet and thumb a ride to P3X-211." He looked at Teal'c. "Right?"

"That does seem to be a viable plan."

Mitchell gave the General a triumphant look. "See."

Landry closed his eyes for a moment. He knew he wasn't going to get any peace around here until these two were off to find the rest of their team. "Fine. But if the Odyssey can't accommodate you, I don't want you bullying them into it. If that idea doesn't pan out, I want you two back here. We'll figure something else out. You read?"

"Yes sir. Walter! Dial her up!"

Landry sighed again as Mitchell and Teal'c went through the gate. He knew very well that he wouldn't be seeing them until they had their missing teammates back.

* * *

Sam couldn't help but wonder just what they had gotten themselves into this time. The three of them had gone over this cave from top to bottom and had found nothing. No indication of who had made this place, or why. There were no control panels or any ways out besides a chute too slippery and steep to climb, and a door with very thick bars. The cave looked out onto a deep valley, maybe twenty miles across, and surrounded by steep cliffs. The valley floor was covered in what looked to be a dense tangle of jungle with few to no distinguishing landmarks. Not somewhere she wanted to go wading through if she could help it. Though that was kind of a moot point, as they didn't even know if they were going to get out of this cave.

That it was a trap to catch those exiting the gate was obvious. What they didn't know was how old it was. Who built it, and why? Would anyone come to check it sometime in the next century? It was mildly irritating to say the least. Scientists didn't like blanks.

Just to keep busy, she and Vala were going through all of their packs and taking inventory of their supplies. Daniel was standing near the door, keeping watch. Sam glanced up at him every so often. He was standing completely still, weight balanced perfectly on the balls of his feet, hands cradling his P90 comfortably. His clear blue eyes had a hardness about them as he scanned the area immediately out side the cave, alert for any danger.

Dear god, what had she and Jack done to him over the years?

They had turned him into a soldier. That's what they had done.

He was her best friend, she saw him every day, but it wasn't until times like this that she actually stopped and looked at him. Then she would wonder when the scrawny idealist had been replaced with this version of Daniel. The former die-hard pacifist was a better shot than she was with his pistol. _That rankled a bit on the firing range. _Though still a civilian, he had seen enough combat to earn the respect of all of the other SG teams. That combat, as well as the punishment his body had taken over the years, had made him as hard and tough as any of the old time soldiers. That, along with his prodigious intellect, made him a formidable opponent when he wanted to be.

But it was the hardening of his soul that had really marked the transformation. It had started with Sha're's death, and had just progressed with every hard knock the universe sent his way. She still saw the old Daniel when he got really excited about some new discovery or language, and in his compassion and quiet determination. In that, he hadn't changed. But for the most part, she would never have recognized the man she had met ten years ago in the man she knew now. He was a soldier in all but rank.

Jack would be so proud. Or appalled. Probably both. She sighed and went back to her sorting.

They were all being pretty quiet, even Vala. By some unspoken agreement, they weren't talking about their worry over their missing teammates. They all seemed lost in thought. Which was why they all jumped a mile when a display screen dropped out of somewhere in the ceiling. Sam and Vala scrambled to their feet and stared at it warily. It crackled for a moment, then came to life. The wrinkled face of an older human regarded them intently.

"Ah. Humans. Tau'ri by your uniforms. Interesting. I have never used any of your kind before."

It took Sam a moment to realize that he wasn't really talking to them, but examining them as if they were specimens in a zoo. She motioned for Daniel to stay where he was on the far side of the screen, out of sight. "Use our kind? For what exactly? Why have you captured us?" she asked the screen challengingly.

The old man laughed. "I thought two females was a bit of a disappointing catch, but you might prove interesting. And you can tell your friend to come around where I can see them, my sensors tell me there are three of you."

Daniel slowly walked around until he was standing next to Sam. "What do you want with us?"

The old man's face lit up. "Ah! Excellent! A fine specimen."

Daniel's eyebrows shot toward his hairline, probably at being called a "specimen". "How long do you plan to keep us here? And why? We've never had dealings with you before. Are you with the Lucian Alliance?"

" Hardly. And I don't plan to keep you in there at all. In fact, you will be free to leave that cave in a few hours. "

Daniel frowned. "And then?"

"And then I give you the same chance I give all my guests. If you can cross the valley and make it to my home in 48 hours, you will be rewarded and returned to the gate."

Daniel furrowed his brow. "What? What's this all about?"

"I am a hunter, dear boy. Using my stargate I have traveled from planet to planet, hunting creatures of all kinds. The more dangerous the better. But animals lost their challenge for me long ago. Now I hunt the most dangerous prey there is, the two legged kind."

Vala snorted at that. "You? Forgive me, but it doesn't look like you could hunt much."

The man shook his head ruefully. "Too true, my dear. The spirit is willing, but the body? No matter. I have had many years to find a way to make this entertaining for me. Now, rest up, my prey. The hunt starts at dawn. Good luck to you all."

The screen slid back up into it's niche.

The three of them stood and blinked at one another for a long moment before Daniel started muttering under his breath. Sam didn't understand what he was saying, but she didn't have to. Most of the SGC was under the impression that Daniel never cursed. His team knew that wasn't exactly true. He just never cursed in English.

* * *

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here we go. Enjoy. I know I am. Thanks for the great reviews. Glad I'm not alone in this little obsession of ours.**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

* * *

Mitchell shivered as he stepped from the gate on…? He just realized that he hadn't even gotten the name of the planet he and Teal'c had just arrived on. All he knew was, it was damn cold and they didn't have any heavier clothes. The sun was a distant, dim presence in the sky, and did nothing to warm him up. The gate was situated in a depression, with hills and ridges all around covered in dying vegetation. Not your usual vacation spot.

"Well, this must be the place. No wonder these people want to leave. I'd want off of this rock too. Come on, buddy, let's go find the village before we freeze our asses off."

"I heartily agree."

Mitchell and Teal'c moved out in a ground eating lope toward the nearest high ground. As the activity warmed him up, Cam began to plan ahead in his mind. Or, at least he tried to. Evidently his brain wanted to dwell on other things. Like the fact that, here he was, on his third year of leading this team, and now he'd gone and misplaced some of them again. He still had no idea how General O'Neill did this for eight years without ripping all his hair out. O'Neill did blame Jackson for turning it gray, but at least it was still attached. There were times when Cam ran his hands through his hair so much in worry that he had to check to see if any was missing.

"Are you concerned, Colonel Mitchell?"

Cam grinned. He wondered, not for the first time, if all Jaffa could read minds or if this was just a Teal'c thing. "Nah. Well, kinda. But I also know that they're fine. If you put Sam and Jackson together, you get like the biggest brain in the galaxy. Anything those two can't think their way out of, they can fight their way out. And Vala's almost as hard to kill as Jackson is. Right now they're probably sitting around somewhere waiting to give us a hard time for taking so long."

"I agree. It is unlikely that there would be a situation that they could not find their way out of. And Vala Mal Doran is quite resourceful. We will find them waiting for us on P3X-211. Probably impatiently."

_Unless they think we're cosmic goo on the inside of an iris. _

That oh so pleasant thought was driven from his mind as they toped the rise and were confronted with the ever astonishing sight of a Daedalus-class ship sitting on the ground. The Odyssey rested in a field near a small village, her main loading ramp open, and a steady stream of people going in and out. "Oh taxi." Cam said, raising a finger, and the two started to trot down a well worn trail toward the town.

Like any good Marine and veteran SG team leader, Reynolds had put two of his men to watch the approach from the gate, and Cam and Teal'c were challenged about a half mile from the village. Two figures appeared on the path ahead of them, weapons trained. Cam didn't immediately recognize the two young Marines, but SG-3 had just gone through a personnel rotation. One had gone on to lead a team of his own, and another had shown a Carter-eske flair for alien tech, and had transferred to Area-51. He'd been hearing Reynolds bitch about it in the locker room for the last couple of weeks.

Cam made a big show of taking his hands off his weapons, and gestured for Teal'c to do the same. The last thing he needed right now was to get shot by a nervous rookie. Luckily, the kid seemed to have it together, and straightened up to salute him a second later. "Colonel Mitchell, sir."

"At ease. Is Reynolds in town?"

"Yes sir. The Colonel's supervising the food distribution. It was too cold for these people to get a good harvest this year. He should be in the town square. I'll inform him your heading his way."

"Thank you, Sergeant. You can go back to your duty now." The younger man saluted again and disappeared back into the underbrush. "Come on Teal'c, lets get this over with. Reynolds is never going to let me hear the end of this."

They found the Colonel in the command tent that had been set up in the center of the village. He broke off his discussion with one of the relief personnel and strode over to them as they entered. His sharp eyes bored into each of them in turn, than glanced outside the tent. Cam could see him counting in his head. He smirked. "Lose something, Mitchell?

Cam wasn't amused. "Very funny, Reynolds. It may be funny later, but right now, I'm not laughing. Right now I need your help to find the rest of my team." He then proceeded to give Reynolds a short run down of what had happened that afternoon in the SGC. When he got to the part about him almost stepping through the gate, the Colonel whistled. "Damn man, that was a close one. Remind me to buy Harriman lunch when I get back."

Cam smiled. "Don't worry. Trust me when I say the man's got quite a few free lunches coming to him. But let's get back to me and Teal'c's little problem here. We need to hitch a ride."

Reynolds didn't even bat an eye. "Figured as much. Let's head over to the Odyssey and see what we can do."

That's what Cam wanted to hear. No matter how much of a hard time they gave each other, there wasn't anything the different teams wouldn't do for each other. All for one and one for all, and all that. And everyone bent over backwards for SG-1. Sam and Jackson were two of the most respected people in the SGC, and were owed a whole lot of lunches for the times they had pulled peoples fat out of the fire. Sometimes he still felt like he was coasting on the wave of their achievements. Compared to two of them, not to mention the Jaffa walking next to him, he was as much of a noob as the young Marine back on the trail.

"_Then why an I always saving their asses?"_ he thought to himself.

Mitchell pulled his thoughts to the here and now as they reached the edge of town and started across the sallow fields to the crouching ship, passing SGC personnel and villagers as they ferried belongings and supplies back and forth. The sound of their boots on the metal of the ramp was a comforting sound to Cam. He didn't know why, but he just felt good when he was on this ship. Sure, there was the little Replicator problem, and that one incident that Teal'c refused to talk about, but still, the old boat had done them good over the years.

Odyssey's current captain was a man Mitchell had only met in passing. Smits? Smalls? Damn, what was it? He was horrible with names. Why wasn't Jackson here to tell him these things? Teal'c kept giving him amused glances as he continued to mutter names under his breath, hoping to come across one that sounded right.

Just as they walked onto the bridge, it came to him. "Smithton!"

Reynolds laughed out loud as everyone there turned to look at Cam quizzically. Even Teal'c was smirking.

Brig. General Smithton rose from "the chair" and walked over to them. He was an older man, probably about General Landry's age, with a head of steel gray hair and generous laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. "Now that my crew knows my name, what can I do for you Colonel Mitchell. I take it Hank didn't send you two to check up on me?"

Mitchell straightened to attention, his face flush with embarrassment. "Sorry about that, sir. A little lost without my rolodex."

Smithton grinned. "Is he about six feet, wears glasses?"

"That would be him."

"And, judging by his and two certain ladies absences, you need my help with something."

"Yes, sir." _Damn, this guy is worse than my father._

"So, where do you need to go?"

General or no, Cam could of kissed him.

* * *

True to the old man's word, just as the sun peaked over the ridge across the valley, the bars over the cave mouth slid smoothly aside. The slight grinding noise woke Daniel from the light doze he had been in, leaning up against the far wall. He blinked in the soft light, shook his head to loosen the last cobwebs of sleep from his mind, and fervently wished for a cup of coffee. He had the feeling it was going to be a very, very long day.

He reached out to wake his two companions. It had gotten surprisingly cool overnight, and they had huddled together for a little warmth. Vala, blanket pulled as tight around her as it could go, was laying on one side of him, back pressed up against his leg and head pillowed on her pack. Sam was sitting propped up against the wall like him, her shoulder pressed up against his, another blanked draped over both of them. When he looked at her, her arms were crossed, her chin resting on her chest, but her eyes were open. The grinding of the bars had probably woken her too. They gave each other twin, muzzy smiles, then he reached out a hand to wake Vala. Carefully. This was usually a chancy thing at the best of times, due to the fact that when startled out of sleep, she tended to come up swinging. And, due to her past, she tended to aim southward a bit.

"Vala. Vala, wake up," he said softly, shaking her shoulder a bit. She rolled over suddenly, and he cringed involuntarily. She looked up at him, her gray eyes open, alert, and full of mirth.

"Don't worry, I was already awake. Your manhood is safe."

Daniel heard Sam snort softly next to him. He decided that simply getting up and ignoring them would save him a little of his dignity.

Vala sat up and gazed out of the cave. "I see the crazy old man wasn't lying to us about letting us out of here at least. So, now what?"

Sam levered herself up onto her feet and stretched, then started folding both blankets and stowing them in their packs. "I don't think we have much of a choice. We don't know what that guy is going to throw at us, and I for one don't want to be cornered in this cage. If we start traveling in the right direction, we can get the lay of the land and figure things out from there. When we miss our check in, SGC will start wondering what happened to us." She was careful not to mention their missing teammates. "We might even be able to find a way back up to the gate and not have to go through with this stupid hunt at all. "

Daniel noticed that she didn't sound very confident about that last statement. He had to agree. If this man had been doing this for as long as he claimed, he had probably already made sure that the gate was out of reach. When they stepped blinking into the morning sun, he saw that he was right. He had to crane his neck to see the top of the cliff far above them. The sides were sheer, and at least 300 feet tall. A glance around told him that the cliffs were the same almost all the way around the valley. In fact, they were a little too uniform. He and Sam exchanged looks.

"This place isn't natural. I think these walls were artificially cut. I'm beginning to wonder if this entire place wasn't made by our host," Sam said, sounding grim. "So much for getting to the gate. Even if we had enough rope between us, we'd never get it up there."

Vala looked at her, dismayed. "You mean we have to go tramping through there?" She pointed at the thick mat of vegetation below them. " 'Cause it looks really, really unpleasant. Not to mention dirty. There are probably bugs, too. Big bugs."

Daniel sighed. "Can you fly?" he said, sarcastically, pointing up the cliff. "Because that's the only way you'd make it up there."

Vala narrowed her eyes at him, a look of supreme displeasure on her aristocratic face. "That's it. I'm packing a thermos or two of coffee in my pack next mission, 'cause you are just too cranky in the morning without it."

Sam actually laughed out loud at that one. He turned to glare at her. She had one hand over her mouth, her blue eyes dancing as she tried (unsuccessfully) to smother the rest of her chuckles. "You have to admit, she's got you there, Daniel. You've had a caffeine problem for as long as I've known you." She grinned at him cheekily.

He shook his head in mock annoyance and smirked at his friend. "Sam. Pot, kettle, black. And Vala, I'm sorry I snapped at you. Now, my coffee addiction aside, we need to get moving and make some plans."

After an extremely unsatisfactory breakfast of power bars and water from their canteens, they began the arduous process of picking their way down the steep slope that ran from the base of the wall to the jungle below. As they traveled, Daniel was running through their supplies in his head. They had enough food for a few days, so that wasn't a problem. Given all the lush growth on the floor of the valley, it was safe to assume there would be water. They had a P90 apiece, he and Sam's 9-mils, Vala's zat, plus some assorted explosives. He really hoped that these would be equal to anything they ran into here.

Something about this situation was tickling at his memory, though. He had the feeling this was all familiar, he just had no idea how. He was on point, so he couldn't dedicate as much thought as he would have liked to this little conundrum, he also had to stay alert and watch their surroundings. So far nothing had menaced them other than the loose boulders on this slope. How would this hunt take place? People with guns? Robots? Trained animals? Then it came to him. He stopped and turned to his teammates.

"What?" Vala, who was directly behind him, said. "You have that look."

That distracted him momentarily. "What look? I have a look?"

"The look you get when you're thinking. The little scrunchy lines on your forehead bunch together."

He looked at her like he didn't know her for a moment. "Oh. Ok. Wait, never mind. It just came to me that this whole scenario was just a little familiar, that's all. It's a lot like this story I read in school, where a man is trapped on an island, where he's hunted by this crazy Russian. Except the hunter tracks the man himself, using trained dogs and an assistant."

Sam cocked her head thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, that does sound kind of familiar."

"What happens at the end?" Vala asked.

"It's been a long time, but I think the man being hunted outsmarts the hunter somehow."

"Well, good. That means we have a chance."

Daniel rolled his eyes and started walking again. "Vala, we don't even know how this crackpot plans to hunt us yet. Lets not get overconfident here."

Vala pouted. "Oh pooh. Just because I was gifted with an overabundance of confidence and you weren't doesn't mean you have to rain gloom and doom all over. I prefer to think positively."

Daniel preferred to do what he usually did when Vala started in on him, and that was pretend she didn't exist. He had learned the hard way that keeping his mouth shut in situations like this was the better part of valor.

They made their way to the edge of the jungle with out mishap and paused. The sun was climbing and the humidity was rising with it. In an hour it would be almost intolerable. Daniel reached into his pocket, pulled out a bandana and tied it over his head to keep the worst of the moisture out of his eyes. He could tell that his glasses were going to be an issue, they were beginning to fog up already. Well, as long as he didn't have to read anything in a hurry, he would be fine.

Up close, the jungle looked even more tangled and uninviting. He was starting to get some very unpleasant flashbacks of Honduras. It was a shame really. He had some fond memories of trips to the Yucatan with his parents. Fishing, exploring the ruins, learning the local customs and languages, they had been good times. But kidnapping and torture can really sour your outlook on a place, and that jungle had been the last one he'd ever wanted to see.

He sighed. So much for that.

* * *

Sam noticed his fixed look and squeezed his arm. "Daniel?"

He shook his head abruptly. "Nothing. Bad thoughts. Let's go."

Sam watched him as he began to wade his way through the brush, Vala dutifully following. Bad thoughts, huh? She had a pretty good idea what the problem was. Daniel could be extremely hard to read when he wanted to be, but he couldn't hide much from her. They had been friends way too long. He and Bill Lee had been in bad shape after their captivity in Honduras. Daniel's gunshot wound had been only the most obvious of their issues. He never actually came out and told her they had been tortured, but he hadn't needed to. She couldn't think of any other reason he would blanch at the sight of a pair of jumper cables in her trunk. And the worst thing was, due to his extraordinary memory, the images wouldn't fade with time. Four years later, they still came back to haunt him with the same clarity as when it happened.

But, like he always did, he pushed the memory aside with all the others he didn't like to think about, and got on with his life. Sam sighed mentally and followed after her teammates.

* * *

Daniel shoved through one last thick patch of tangled vines and was surprised to find himself on the edge of a clearing of sorts. The music of running water came from a small stream that emerged from the forest to his right. He stepped aside and automatically held aside the vines for Vala and Sam. It was nearing mid-day, they had been fighting the jungle for the better part of four hours, and he and Sam decided this was a good a place as any for a rest. They needed it. They were all tired and soaked with sweat and moisture from the air, but they dared not lower their guard, or even their weapons for long. The going was certainly hard, mixed with periods of impossible, but not really all that dangerous, and that was starting to worry Daniel. Though he had no idea what their host had in mind for them, it was obvious that they hadn't seen it yet.

They took turns shrugging out of their heavy vests and long sleeved shirts and freshening up at the stream a bit. Daniel even went so far as to dunk his head in the cool water, then soak his bandana and re-tied it over his hair. It was damp, but it sure felt better. He decided to forgo putting his shirt back on and zipped his vest up over his tee. A few scratches on his arms was worth being a little cooler. He found himself longing for the dry heat of Egypt and Abydos. Finished and refreshed, he stood guard while Sam and Vala did the same.

Vala had stopped complaining about the heat and the insects after the first hour and now had settled into a sort of determined silence. He'd had to hide his smile every time he looked back to check on her and saw her focused expression. He knew what kind of grit she possessed, and he had to admit, it was something he liked to see. With her mane of black hair pulled back into a no-nonsense braid, her gun cradled in her arms, she looked like the warrior he knew she was. He was proud of her, proud that his trust had not been placed in error. She had become an indispensable member of the team, and a good friend. He would tell anyone who asked that he would trust her with his back in any situation.

The rest of their relationship, however, was just as confusing to him as it had always been. She had finally given up the heavy flirting, acknowledging that it made him uncomfortable. He also knew that the flirting and outrageousness was mostly a cover to hide her insecurities and painful memories. It was a lot like his own defense mechanisms. There were still times that she drove him crazy, but now his response was usually amusement rather than anger. They had settled into a easy friendship that, he could now admit, might very well turn into something else with time. At the moment, neither of them seemed interested in rushing things, and were content to take it day by day.

A crackling in the underbrush at the far side of the clearing broke him from his musings and made his companions stand up and spin in the same direction. They had both just finished getting their gear back on and had their weapons trained and ready. Sam and Vala had followed his lead and had ditched their heavy long sleeved shirts and had put their flak vests on over their black tank tops. They both came up to stand on either side of him, and they waited, eyes trained on the spot the noises were coming from.

Whatever was out there was big and coming their way. A slight movement was going on in a clump of bushes now. A few seconds later, an animal stepped from the forest. Vala sucked in a breath at the sight of it, and he looked down at her. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open a bit. Well, at least one of them seemed to know what it was. He had never seen anything like it.

If someone had somehow managed to cross a Great Dane with a Siberian Tiger, take away the fur and turn it black, you would get something that looked roughly like the creature in front of them. It was huge, its doglike head coming up to Daniel's chest, and easily ten feet long. Its body was definitely feline, but with a high, slightly arched back that made it look a bit like a sighthound from Earth and was covered with smooth, leathery skin. It moved sideways of their position in a smooth walk, and Daniel saw that he was wrong in his initial assumption that this was a wild animal.

It was wearing a heavy looking harness of leather and metal. Small lights blinked here and there on it. Something that looked suspiciously like the lens of a camera protruded slightly from a wide section across the animals chest.

"Vala?" he asked very quietly.

"I don't know what they're called," she whispered back. "But Quetesh had some very fond memories of what they can do. They're fast, strong, and smart. They were bred as guard animals on one of her planets."

"Looks like our friend found something to do his hunting for him," Sam muttered.

At the slight sound of her voice, the animal lifted its head and let loose with a long, low, wet growl that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. This was accompanied by a show of some impressively large teeth. Vala gasped as Daniel and Sam raised their weapons. With timing born of ten years of teamwork, they opened fire together on the creature. Rounds from both P90s raked across its body, only to bounce harmlessly off the orange energy field that surrounded it.

Sam had just enough time to shout something about a personal shield before the massive animal charged.

Daniel turned and shoved a frozen Vala toward the tree line. "Go! We need to get up a tree!" His eyes scanned the forest's edge until he spotted a large tree with huge, sturdy, and relatively low branches. "Sam!" he yelled and gestured to it. She nodded and aimed toward it. Daniel followed behind until he was sure that Vala was running, then sprinted ahead. His longer legs got him to the tree first, and he crouched at the base and laced his fingers together. Sam arrived and stepped neatly into his cupped hands and he boosted her into the branches. Vala followed behind her a moment later. As they scrambled to find purchase on higher limbs, Daniel backed up a few steps, then took a running leap upward. To his relief, he hooked his arms around a branch on the first try. Those afternoons playing one-on-one with Mitchell had really paid off.

He was pulling himself up when a sudden painful pressure on his foot made him yell. Risking a quick look over his shoulder, he saw his boot clamped firmly in a pair of black jaws. His hands began to slip on the rough bark as the creature slowly and patiently began to tug him from the tree. The muscles in his arms quivered with the strain as he fought this with all his strength. Bark rained down on him, and he looked up to see Sam launch herself across the space between them and grab the shoulders of his vest. Small, strong hands locking around his wrist told him that Vala had arrived. Thus began sort of an absurd tug of war, with him as the prize. Daniel's and Sam's eyes met. It was hard not to, their foreheads were almost touching. She had on that stubborn face he knew so well. Either he was coming up into this tree, or they were both going down, 'cause she wasn't about to let him go.

The animal was ridiculously strong, and his weight combined with the pack he was still wearing wasn't making things easy for the two women. The pack had his usual stuff in it, a few books, most of the camping supplies, his cameras. It had to weigh at least thirty pounds. An idea popped into his head suddenly. "Vala," he grunted. "Reach up and unclip my pack." She nodded and slid her hands up his arm, trying to keep a grip on him and do what he asked at the same time. Sam worked her hands down the straps on his vest just enough so that Vala could get at the clips. His weight pitched to the side with a jerk as one side loosened. She leaned over Sam's arms and got the second snap, and things happened fast after that.

As he had hoped, the heavy pack fell down directly onto the surprised animal's head. It jerked back in alarm just as Sam gave a determined tug, and, with a muffled pop, Daniel's boot slipped off of his foot. The forward momentum brought him halfway onto the branch. Sam, in a feat of adrenalin fueled strength, grabbed his belt and hauled him the rest of the way up. He levered himself up so he could sit against the trunk of the tree, Sam leaning against him, both panting heavily. They all looked down at the ebon shape glaring up at them impotently. Daniel was glad to see that it had dropped his boot to the ground, and that it was in one piece. Even though he had no idea how he was going to get it back, he didn't relish the thought of wading around in this jungle with only one shoe. He thought about the power of those jaws as they closed around his foot. Leaning down and taking off his sock, he could see some bruiseing starting across the places that hadn't been protected by the boot's thick sole. In light of that, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to get down out of this tree. Luckily, unlike the cat it vaguely resembled, its legs were built more for running than for climbing.

He groaned and rested his head against the rough bark of the trunk behind him. He was officially beat, and they had only just started this lunacy. Sam grabbed his hand and squeezed it, which he returned. Vala wrapped her arms around his neck in relief, and for once, he let her. "Daniel, I think the wonko old man read the same story you did."

* * *

**Sorry this is late. Work sucks. See ya next time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**No excuses, I'm just slow. Sorry. And, if anyone's interested, I finally found out the name of the short story this is loosely based on. It's called The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell. (Thanks again, tosakuai)**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

* * *

They found out a few things in that first hour stuck in the tree. The first, and most obvious was, you can't do much while stuck in a tree. Second, their large friend below wasn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. It seemed convinced that it had them exactly where it wanted them. The third and most dramatic discovery was that zat blasts just seemed to piss it off. That led to them learning that, on its hind legs, it could reach really high. They'd had to do an emergency relocation to some higher branches. The trunk of the tree now bore several marks in the way of bites and scratches from the beast's displeasure at being zapped.

But, thanks to Sam, they also now had something to call it.

"_It looks like a Infernal Hellhound. At least it can't breath fire."_

_Vala looked at her blankly, but Daniel had an idea of what she was talking about, and chuckled._

_Sam glanced at him indignantly. "What, you never played D&D in college?"_

"_Sam, I was on a fast track through college. I didn't have time to play anything, though it was pretty popular when I was at UCLA."_

"_What are we talking about? Samantha, you have seen these creatures before? Wait, they can breath fire?" Vala peered down at their captor in alarm. She then narrowed her eyes as both her companions started laughing._

"_It's alright Vala," Daniel soothed. "Sam's talking about a game. I'm reasonably sure that this hellhound doesn't breath fire."_

_Vala didn't look like she was quite ready to believe him, and moved up to a higher branch._

Now they had been up in the tree for the better part of two hours. The hound lay at the base, seemingly asleep, but glancing up at them every time they made a noise. Daniel, for lack of anything better to do at the time, had made it his mission to get his captured boot back. He had cut a long branch into a somewhat hook like shape, and was trying to snag the laces. This was proving difficult as the hound had decided to lay practically on top of it. He had already retrieved his pack, but the hound, in a very dog-like way, seemed to have taken a shine to his boot. Every time he got the stick close, the animal shifted or batted it away.

"Damn!" Daniel grunted after another failed attempt. "Why does everything always have to be so hard?"

"Could be worse, " Sam said. "Could be your glasses. That would be 123."

Daniel snorted. One day, in a rare fit of boredom, he and Sam had sat down and figured out just how many pairs of glasses he had lost over the years. He had been unsurprised at the number. The longest he had kept one pair without losing or breaking them had been four months. Not to mention every time he was taken captive the first thing his captors did was take his glasses, as if he would be crippled without them. Jeeze, he was farsighted, not blind. "Yeah? Well I could have ended up like Mitchell always does and lost my pants."

He regretted saying that, both for the way Sam's face clouded over for a second, and the way that, a moment later, she seemed to feel the need to defend Cam in his absence. "No, you tend to lose everything. You would think someone good enough to ascend twice could manage to come back with clothes on."

"Aht!" he barked at Vala, who had opened her mouth at that last statement, her eyes glittering with glee. "I don't want to hear about it from you. Either of you. Jack gives me a hard enough time about that as it is. In my defense, it's not like I had a whole lot of choice the first time. And the second time, I think I barely made it into Jack's office. Damn it!" The last was after another failed attempt to retrieve his boot.

"Here, let me try something." Sam worked her way out further on her limb and flicked on the laser sight on her P90. Angling the gun, she shone the light on the trunk, right at hellhound eye level. It took a moment, but suddenly the animal noticed the alluring red dot in front of it. It stood up and pressed its nose to the bark in confusion, than slowly followed as the dot moved down the tree and onto the ground. Sam wiggled the laser so the dot danced around on the ground some five feet from the tree, causing the animal's ears to prick up. In a fluid movement the hound crouched, then pounced, excitedly trying to bat at the mysterious light with its big paws. Daniel lunged with his stick and snagged the laces of his boot and pulled it up. Sam kept the creature's attention for awhile longer, more for her amusement than anything else, then switched the laser off. She chuckled a bit at the perplexed air the hound gave off as it looked around for its new toy.

"Sam, that was brilliant. How did you know it would do that?" Daniel asked as he slipped on his boot and started lacing it up. Some deep dents in the thick sole were testament to how strong those jaws were, but it seemed to be only moderately slobbered on.

"Bill was playing with the laser pointer in my lab one day and was telling me how crazy his cat went with one. He had to stop using it because it made the cat completely neurotic. Kept looking for the "little red dot" months after he got rid of the pointer. See." She pointed at the hound, who was still nosing around in the grass where the dot had disappeared. "Looks like it works on dogs too. Or, dog-things."

Daniel finished with his footwear and settled himself more comfortably against the tree trunk. "Pet psychology and Bill's neurotic cat aside, we can't stay up here forever. Ideas?"

"We've found out just how well our weapons work on that shield. Besides dropping a claymore on it's head, which I don't recommend at this range, I don't know what else to try, " Sam said as she slung her gun around to the side and lounged on her branch, much like a big cat herself. The hound looked alertly up at the movement, then went back to its search for the mysterious red dot. "Kind of a shame to kill it. I like dogs."

"You can't take one home, Sam." Daniel laughed when she stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, very mature."

Vala raised an eyebrow at this. "You suddenly like the monster that's trying to maul us to death?"

"Vala, it's an animal, not an monster. It's only doing what it was trained to do. Animals aren't cruel or malicious, they just do what they do. Domesticated ones are only as good as their owners. I know we're probably going to have to kill it, it's just a shame, that's all. "

"Oh," Vala said, mollified. "But that's kind of moot anyways seeing as we **can't** kill it."

Sam smiled. "Just because we can't shoot it doesn't mean there isn't another way."

"Why would he put a shield on the thing in the first place if he thought we would have a chance to win this little hunt of his? Doesn't seem very fair to me."

"Because he's a sportsman." Both women looked over at Daniel. "He actually does want us to have a chance against his hunters. But he also wants his animals to have a chance against us, so he made them bulletproof. It wouldn't be entertaining for him if this whole thing was over too quickly. He's got a camera on the hound's harness, and I bet he has this jungle laced with cameras and listening devices. This is kind of like a reality show to him, he wants it to last more than one episode."

Vala pulled a face. "Well that's…creepy," she said, looking around them. "_Survivor_, with the ever-present chance of being torn to shreds. Sad thing is, I'd probably watch it."

Sam laughed. " You got addicted to those things pretty fast. I don't know how you can watch any of them. They're obviously staged."

Vala looked horrified. "They are not! Not all of them! The cameras are just there to record things. The people making the show don't interfere at all."

Sam snorted.

Daniel smirked at the argument, crossed his arms, and started to work on their dilemma. He didn't know much about animals. The only exposure to them he'd ever had was his so called "pet" mastadge on Abydos. His father-in-law had owned several of the camel-like creatures. He'd learned how to handle the huge beasts of burden out of necessity, mainly because Little Bit, as the animal had come to be called, had followed, or tried to follow, him everywhere. Skaara and the other boys got a lot of amusement out of letting it loose as he walked past. The only way he had been able to keep the big smelly thing away from him had been to tie it up.

Hmm.

"Sam, how much rope have we got?"

"We each have coils in our packs. About 100 feet each. Why?"

"I'm getting an idea. How strong is it?"

Sam seemed to get where he was going with this. "It's the strongest test the military's got. You could stop a car with it. But once we tie it up, what's to stop the hound from just chewing through it? It would take it a little bit, but eventually, it would get out. It seems smart enough to figure that out in a hurry. "

"That's what I'm still working on."

Vala, quite used to the way Daniel and Sam bounced ideas off of each other by now, had been following along. "If it's smart enough to chew through a rope it's probably smart enough not to get caught in the first place."

Daniel nodded. "Good point. We're going to have to trick it somehow. Maybe with the laser again." He ran through a list of all their supplies in his mind, seeing if anything would give him an idea. When he came to the tents, he stopped. Before Vala had become a permanent member of the team, he and Sam had always shared one tent, and Cam and Teal'c had shared the other. Becoming a five member team had necessitated a slight change of sleeping arrangements when camping off world. Somehow they had gravitated to a "guys tent" and "girls tent" kind of thing, with he, Cam and Teal'c sharing a larger tent, and Sam and Vala bunking together in the smaller. The larger tent was supported by long, light-weight, aluminum poles. And, by some fluke, it had gotten into his pack this trip and not Teal'c's.

Once on a dig in Egypt when he was a child, a wild jackal had blundered into a phone booth type excavation overnight, much to the consternation of the grid's excavators. By morning it had been in a panic, and in its terror was trying to take a chunk out of anything that came near. If they had pulled it up with a simple rope, it would have attacked them as soon as its feet touched the ground. Daniel remembered his father tying a noose to the end of one of their tent poles and using it to pull the terrified animal out of the pit. The pole had held the jackal at bay long enough for someone to throw a tarp over it. That calmed it enough so that it could be released back into the desert. Of course, in this instance, Daniel had no intention of releasing their captive. "Sam, get your rope out. I've got an idea."

Things moved fast after that, as they usual did after finally coming up with a plan of action. Daniel explained while they worked. Sam got the concept immediately. Getting one of the tent poles out of his pack without spilling everything else out of it, all while balancing on a branch, was fun, to say the least, but at last they accomplished it. It was a close fit getting the rope to pass through the hollow of the pole, but after some frustrated effort on their part, this too was done. A noose with a tight slip knot at the end was the finishing touch.

"This is going to take some timing. That thing is going to go nuts as soon as it feels the loop." Sam said, as Daniel positioned himself on one of the thicker limbs. "We're going to have to get this end tied off quick, or whoever's still holding on is going to end up on the ground."

"No kidding. Vala, you're fast with a knot, that's your job." Vala nodded and loosely draped the free end of the rope around the thick branch they had decided on. "Sam, time to tease the kitty again."

Daniel balanced himself directly above their target and shook the loop loosely. They were only going to have one chance at this. He could see the animal wising up to them if they missed the first time. Sam, on the next branch over, switched the laser on and shone it on the ground right in front of its nose. Its ears went up excitedly and it began to follow the light to the base of the tree, then raised its head to follow as it moved up the trunk. As soon as the hound's head was up as far as it could go, Daniel neatly dropped the noose around its supple neck. The animal was so startled for a moment that it just stood there. That gave Daniel enough time to jerk the rope taunt and slam the pole home against the knot. Vala pulled the rope tight around the branch and tied the end off fast enough to make a calf-roper jealous.

Which was a good thing, because a few seconds later, all hell broke loose. The hound quickly got over its shock when it felt the loop tighten around its neck and promptly went berserk.

The massive black body danced and twisted at the end of the pole, claws digging up chunks of earth and flinging them out into the field, a strangled howl emanating from its slavering jaws. So strenuous were it exertions that it was even causing the stout branch to which it was tied to buck and bounce. Daniel caught his balance at a particularly wicked shimmy, and hopped over to join Sam and Vala before he fell on the enraged bundle of teeth below. As they watched, the animal tried to get its jaws around the thing that had trapped it, but all it could do was graze the metal with its fangs. That failing, it began to struggle again. They waited a few minutes to see if their knots would hold, then, when they were convinced they would, started to gather up their gear in preparation to move out. Sam was first on the ground, her teammates following after she gave the all clear. They headed off into the jungle at a fast trot, needing to cover some miles before dark. When Daniel glanced back, the hound had stopped struggling and its yellow eyes were boring into his. The menace glaring from them told Daniel something of their chances if the hound ever got loose and caught them on the ground.

* * *

Cam had always thought of the Odyssey as a pretty big ship. True, he didn't have much to compare it to. He hadn't been on very many other ships, besides the odd Ha'tak. While the Goa'uld mother-ships were bigger, he liked to think that the Daedalus-class ships were more tasteful. There was just something ostentatious about a big flying gold pyramid. At the moment, though, all these lovely thoughts of the Air Force's battle cruisers had started to pale after a day on one that was stuffed to the gills with villagers and all their worldly possessions. Cam now had intimate knowledge of what a sardine in a can felt like.

After helping with the loading, Mitchell and Teal'c had searched the ship for a spot to call their own. It had proved to be an almost impossible thing. It was not only people, but their stuff. And their animals. A whole section of the starboard hangar bay had been converted to house livestock and, as no one had the heart to tell the kids to leave their pets behind, several dogs were now running amok on one of the decks. The Odyssey had been converted from a sleek and serious fighting machine to a giant floating Greyhound bus.

They had finally found a spot in a hallway near the engine room, which turned out to be a mixed blessing, as it was quiet and mercifully free of dogs, but also still bore some slight signs of their fight with the Replicators, a day he'd rather not think too hard about. But boredom had always made him think too much, and this trip was going to be no exception. He sat quietly next to a meditating Teal'c and looked at the slightly pockmarked walls around him. Replicators. Little sons o' bitches. Right up there with the Ori in terms of level of pain in his ass. The team had been split up that trip too, and look how they'd turned out. Jackson, Vala, and Tomin had looked like they had been raked over hot coals, Teal'c had obviously taken a staff blast, though it had been healed somehow, and he himself had looked like he'd gone forty rounds with Evander Holyfeild.

But, as much as he had hurt, the pain had gone away when his missing team members had been brought in, and he realized just how important this mismatched group of people had become to him. They weren't just the people under his command, they were his family.

Cam hadn't missed the dark rings under Jackson's eyes, or the way his body had shuddered with fatigue and residual pain from whatever the Priors had been torturing them with. But as he sat on the bed next to his in the Odyssey's infirmary, stoically sitting through having the split on his cheekbone stitched up, his friend's expressive eyes had held only concern for Cam's injuries. Then, once they had hit the SGC, Daniel had hung out with him a lot, telling him stories of past missions and keeping him from going insane while he was off his feet. Cam had been a surprised, grateful and somewhat flattered audience.

When Mitchell had first arrived at the SGC, he had been told by numerous personnel that Daniel Jackson was a very nice, but very private man that only opened up around his teammates and a select few other people, like General Hammond and the late Janet Fraiser. People who had worked with him for ten years hardly knew anything about him. But somehow that same private, unapproachable person had become Cam's closest friend. That the friendship was returned was the flattering part, since he knew very well he took a backseat to Jack O'Neill. But Jackson was an all or nothing kind of guy, in everything he did. Apparently that included his friendship, 'cause once you had him on your side, it took a hell of a lot to get rid of him. He was like that perfect older brother. Definitely wiser than you, but still close enough in age to be your pal and play basketball with you.

In the same way, Sam was like the big sister he'd never had. He had known her for years, and trusted her without question. They were equal in rank, but not in experience, and the fact that he acknowledged this was the only thing that let this co-command situation they had going work.

"_Not like it's much of a command, in a team consisting of two Colonels and three civilians_," he thought. _"But hell, why fix what aint broke?"_

He had been stunned when she had brought him homemade cookies. He had been even more shocked when Daniel had come back in, peeked into the bag of macaroons, asked where they had come from, and had promptly started laughing. He had then found out that Sam hated to cook, considered heating up a MRE as too much like cooking, and lived off of take out and anything she could fit in a microwave. It had explained the proud expression on her face when she had presented him with the bag. Cam had thought it was because she had never baked macaroons before, not because she had never baked _anything_ before. That she held him in that high a regard was gratifying considering he had come in and kind of usurped her command.

It took Cam a little longer to sus out how he felt about the team's two aliens. That hadn't been a problem for Vala, as she just took to anyone who would listen to her. Teal'c had been a little harder to win over, seeing 's how his last name wasn't O'Neill. But to Cam's immense satisfaction, the stoic Jaffa had accepted him, both as a friend and as a fellow warrior.

Vala had actually become something like a sister to him, that obnoxious little sister that drove you crazy on a regular basis, but you would do anything to protect. And that, no matter how much she bitched and whined at you, you knew she always had your back as well. And Teal'c, well Teal'c was kind of a old (very old) uncle who you listened to without question because you knew he could still kick your ass.

* * *

After an excruciating 24 hour trip, in which Cam and Teal'c had long run out of ways to amuse themselves and each other, they were finally paged to the bridge. Dominating the forward viewing window was a very small, very green moon orbiting a larger planet. "Damn. Welcome to Endor. All we need is a Death Star," Cam muttered. He heard Teal'c ,the resident Star Wars nut, snort softly beside him.

General Smithton motioned them forward to look at a topographical readout of the moon. "Welcome to P3X-211, gentlemen. We've traced your team's locators to this craterlike depression on the southern hemisphere. We're still trying to figure out if it's natural or not. Here's the Stargate." He pointed to a spot near the rim of the crater. "Here's your team." This spot was down in the crater itself, nearly eight miles from the 'gate.

"What the hell are they doing way down there? They're supposed to wait at the Stargate in a situation like this. Something weird must be going on. Can you beam them up?"

Major Marks looked up at him apologetically. "Sorry, sir. There's some kind of interference surrounding that crater, a barrier or something. It's amazing that we're even picking up their locators. And before you ask, we can't beam you in, either."

Cam sighed. Just like a Star Trek episode. As soon as you really needed the damn transporter, it doesn't work. He examined his options. Normally, he would start at the 'gate and work his way out to find his wayward team, but something had made them abandon the 'gate and go gallivanting off into the unknown. Jackson and Carter were too sensible to do that on a whim. He looked down at Marks's screen. "Are there any other features of interest outside this interference that you could set us down near?"

Marks scanned the area around the crater's rim for a few minutes before cocking his head thoughtfully. "Actually sir, I think I have something. There's a structure built into the cliff opposite the position of the Stargate. It might be a habitation of some sort. The barrier actually bisects the building, so we could put you down right at the front door if you wanted."

"Let's settle for half a mile away. I want a chance to see who we're dealing with before we ring their doorbell like a couple of girl scouts." He turned and saluted to the General. "Sir, thanks for the ride. We'll be out of your hair in a minute."

"My pleasure Colonel. Always happy to keep up the Odyssey tradition of bailing out SG-1. Sorry we can't stick around to assist, but all these extra passengers are straining our life support as it is. But we will swing by on our way back to see if you need anything. We'll also inform the SGC of your status. I imagine Hank might be a little curious about that."

"Thank you sir," Cam said, as he and Teal'c got into position in front of the window. "The way our luck's been leaning lately, that's probably a good idea. We'll try to get the 'gate working, but if that doesn't pan out, we might need a lift home. We'll just start counting out our frequent flyer miles."

General Smithton smiled. "Sounds good, son. Mitchell, Teal'c, good luck."

* * *

The familiar tingling sensation that came with Asguard beaming faded as Cam and Teal'c found themselves next to a toe tingling cliff looking down on a curiously shaped building situated at the edge of the crater. They had arrived precisely where Marks had promised, about half a mile away along the crater's rim. With the sun beginning to set on the far side, the angle allowed them to see that, rather than set on the cliff, the odd dwelling had been built into the cliff face itself. For that's what it obviously was, a home, rather than some other kind of installation. It just had those kind of decorative little embellishes that suggested that someone had lived there for awhile. Large picture windows were positioned to catch any sun rays, as well as what Cam recognized as solar energy panels.

No, not built, carved. It hadn't just been built out of the same rock that made up the wall, it _was_ the same rock.

An outcrop of stone with an ornate door set into it was perched on the rim, facing outward. The energy barrier Marks had mentioned was actually visible as a orangish glow that covered the valley in a low dome and completely bisected the building's only entrance, quickly dashing Mitchell's hopes of getting down to the valley without alerting anyone in the house.

Looking at the valley, it was now easy to see that the walls were unnaturally smooth. And, as he walked cautiously up to the barrier, it was a freaking long way down. Dense jungle covered the valley floor in a seamless mat of dark green. "Well T, they're down there somewhere. Right smack in the middle, according to their locaters. What do you think the story is?"

"I am not sure. The energy barrier could be to keep intruders out, but it is also quite possible that it is to keep things in as well."

Mitchell sighed. "Yeah, the thought had crossed my mind too. I just don't want to think about what those things are, besides our team. I hate to say this, but I think the only way were going to find out is to knock on that door down there."

"I agree, Colonel Mitchell, that is what we must do. With extreme caution."

"I hear that."

The two began to make their way slowly toward the house, following the barrier when possible and using the brush as cover. "Guns at the ready" didn't even begin to describe their vigilance. Cam was starting to get that feeling he got before things went all to hell. All too soon, they reached the edge of the tree line at what seemed to be almost like a property line. They paused to study the area. Cam noticed something. "Hey Teal'c, check this out. There doesn't seem to be any kind of security system or anything. Not even a camera. What do you make of that?" No answer. "T?"

"I think it is due to the fact that the inhabitant does not require a security system."

Cam realized that Teal'c was facing away from the house and was standing stock still. Cam turned around to find himself almost face to face with a huge, black, _something_. With yellow eyes. And really big teeth. Wearing a harness. Crap.

Two more of the animals stepped out of the brush, one keeping an eye on Teal'c, the other seeming to be deciding what to do with them. They looked like big dogs. If dogs got the size of a small car.

"Nice Cujo," Mitchell said to the one staring at him.

* * *

As the sun set, the three weary captives took shelter in a small cave, little more than an overhang really, cut into the bank of a slow moving river that seemed to bisect the valley. They had chosen the site based on the fact that they had actually had to repel down to it using their other rope. It was a good twenty feet down, and set over a section of deep water, making it a hard spot to get to for certain four legged hunters. They had traveled as fast as they could to get this far before dark, but none of them had wanted to spend the night on the ground or in another tree if they could help it. They had been lucky to find this when they did. Vala had been at the end of her energy, and Sam and Daniel weren't in much better shape. They stayed awake long enough to choke down some cold MREs, then settled down to sleep, Daniel keeping watch until he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

Unbeknownst to him, several miles away, a door set into the cliff slid open and two large, inky shapes padded into the jungle.

* * *

**Till next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Never, and I mean never, schedule a house renovation at the same time they remodel your place of work. It sucks o.O **

**Anyhoo, here you go. Sorry for the wait.**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit**

...

Sam woke during the still time of the night right before dawn. There was no apparent lightening of the sky yet, but she had found that the brittle feeling of the air was the same no matter what planet she was on. She wondered immediately what had woken her, and scanned what she could see of the surrounding area. The river moved sluggishly below their ledge with almost no ripples, and the far riverbank was quiet. There wasn't even the slightest breeze to stir the leaves.

What had woken her?

A slight shifting at her back answered that a moment later. Falling into old habits, she and Daniel had settled down propped up back to back, facing up and down the river. It was a mutual comfort in this strange place to have a warm, familiar presence at your back, a comfort Sam was glad for. Vala, also needing the reassurance, had fallen asleep pressed up against both of them, her head resting on Sam's thigh. Their hiding place was so defensible and inaccessible that the three of them had slept soundly, too tired to set up much of a watch. But, as Sam felt more movement at her back, evidently uninterrupted sleep came with its own problems.

Daniel grunted slightly and muttered to himself in a language Sam recognized as Abydonian, his movements becoming more deliberate and unsettled. Years of sharing a tent with her friend had made her acutely sensitive to when he was caught in a nightmare, and, trying not to disturb Vala, reached her hand back to gently wake him. She kept her movements slow, as Vala wasn't the only one it was unwise to startle awake. It only took her running her hand through his hair a few times for him to still, and she knew he was awake. It never took much. He reached up and caught her hand as her fingers brushed his hair a last time and gave it a gentle squeeze in thanks.

"Daniel?" It was time to broach the subject they had been avoiding till now.

"Hmm?"

"Do you think Cam and Teal'c are alright?"

She felt him sigh. "I want to think so. The iris closed pretty fast behind us, and they were down at the bottom of the ramp. If the 'gate on this side sent any kind of signal, Walter would have caught it in enough time to hit the emergency shut down button. Right? I mean, didn't you program that into the system?"

"Yes. But it only works if the barrier on the destination gate is tied in to the DHD or the 'gate itself. If it is powered by a separate computer or function, there would be no signal."

Daniel swallowed hard. "Then we'll deal with that when we get ourselves out of this mess. I can't, I won't believe those two went down like that. Not yet."

And that, Sam thought, is the end of that discussion. Daniel didn't like to talk about things that he couldn't do anything about. They sat in silence for a while, watching the sky lighten above the far rim of the valley. "We really should get moving," Sam finally said with a sigh. "We can't forget we're on a deadline here. And I doubt we've seen everything our gracious host has to throw at us."

"I know I can't wait. How about you?"

Sam smiled at his attempt at levity. He was going on his second morning without caffeine, so she supposed it was all he could manage at the moment. Sam rubbed Vala's shoulder lightly, and she groaned. A very un-amused gray eye squinted up at her.

"You know, I blame you guys and the nice cushy bed you gave me for how sore I am right now. I used to be able to sleep anywhere, but now I'm just spoiled. No good for my former line of work, I hope you know." Vala wasn't a morning person.

Just like a certain archeologist Sam knew. "And that's a bad thing?"

Vala glared at Daniel grumpily. "You've certainly found my skills useful on more than one occasion."

With all of them awake, they got up and got moving, accompanied by more good natured early morning bitching. After eating a quick meal and making a token effort to wash up, they were nearly ready to head out just as the sun peeked over the ridge. Sam helped Daniel clip his pack into place, then went to assist Vala. As Vala returned the favor, Daniel walked over to the rope they had left hanging after their decent the night before. He grabbed it and, wrapping it securely around his fist, gave it a tug. He looked at Sam and she nodded in agreement. Leaping up, he began to haul himself hand over hand up the line. A titter from Vala made her glance over. Her friend was watching Daniel intently, or, at least the parts of him that we still visible as he disappeared up the bank. Sam raised her eyebrow, and Vala gave her a saucy and completely unrepentant grin back. Sam rolled her eyes and waited for Daniel's all clear.

About the time he should have made it to the top of the bank the sand and rocks raining down on them stopped. But, instead of the expected call from above, all the two women heard was a low growl and a loud yelp of surprise. A moment later, a pair of black boots once again appeared above their heads, followed by kicking legs. It was apparent that Daniel was coming back down a lot faster than he went up. In fact, he was descending so fast he was in danger of overshooting the ledge completely. Sam sprang forward and grabbed his feet, guiding him until he was on solid ground once again. He bent over for a moment, catching his breath.

"Well," he panted. "We're not going that way."

"You mean it got loose already?" Vala wailed.

"No, no this is a different one."

"How can you tell?"

"The fact that this one is bigger."

Sam felt her jaw drop. "Bigger? The last one was the size of a small pony. How big do these things get? Are you sure?"

"The size of a large pony apparently. And yes I'm sure, it damn near took my head off. I'm beginning to think the one we had fun with yesterday was young. Makes sense to test us with an inexperienced animal, then hit us with the older ones later."

"That's just great. So much for wondering what else we're going to have to deal with. Now what?" Vala's tone was light, but her stance said she didn't like where this was going. Sam saw her eyes dart toward the river.

Daniel looked around at her, brows knitted. "Vala, I don't think we've asked you this. Can you swim?"

Sam watched Vala's face fall. "Not what I'd really call a good swimmer," she hedged. "But I do float well."

The corners of Daniel's mouth twitched. "Sam and I can help you float across then. It's the only way. I just hope these hounds are sinkers."

They used the still anchored rope to slide down the steep bank to the river. It wasn't fast here, but Sam knew that meant it was pretty deep. How deep was another question.

Vala was slightly ashen as she looked at the slowly rolling water. Daniel squeezed her shoulder as he took his glasses off, folded them one handed, and tucked them in a pocket. "Don't worry. Just hold onto me and I'll get you across. Sam will be right there. We won't let anything happen, okay?"

Vala nodded firmly, grabbed the buddy handle on Daniel's tac vest in a white knuckled grip and they both slid into the water, Sam right behind. The current was strong, but not fast, and Sam had no trouble fighting it. For someone who had lived in deserts most of his life, Daniel was a strong swimmer, and was powering himself and Vala toward the far shore at a good clip. Vala was trying to help, but as Sam pulled abreast of them, she saw that the normally fearless ex-thief's eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

"Vala," Sam panted. "How are you holding up?"

"Oh I'm just dandy. Really."

"I'd be just dandy if you'd stop jabbing me in the side with your knee. Really."

"Oh! Sorry Daniel."

Daniel huffed, then shot Sam a squinty eyed look when she chuckled.

The river was only about forty feet across at this point, and they reached the other side a few minutes later. As they lay on the grassy verge catching their breath, they looked back across to the place they had spent the night. Above the sheltered ledge, a huge ebon form was sitting, watching them. Daniel was right, this one was quite a bit bigger in both height and mass and its pupil-less yellow eyes gazed at them calmly and intelligently, which spooked Sam a lot more than the snarling and growling had. After a few seconds, it got up and began to lope down river. A second inky shadow melted out of the brush and joined It, and soon both animals were out of sight. She and Daniel shared a grim look. This whole business was going pear shaped in a hurry.

"They're going to find a place to cross. There might be a ford miles down river, or it might be just around the bend. We need to get some distance from here before they come back," Sam said. Daniel nodded in agreement and began making his way away from the river. Vala followed dutifully with a resigned sigh. Sam followed her teammates at as fast a pace as the tangled vegetation would allow, not even pausing to wring out their wet clothes. It took a few minutes of bushwhacking before they struck a game trail of sorts, and they could pick up their pace to a fast trot.

As her muscles relaxed into the familiar rhythm of running, her brain began to work over their situation. They were going in the direction they needed to, and glancing up at the steadily looming cliff, she saw they were only about ten miles from their objective. Normally covering ten miles in a day would have been no problem for them. Covering ten miles with giant dogs on their trail was another thing entirely. She didn't know what they would do when the animals inevitably caught up with them. Sure, the tree thing would work, but they would get no closer to their goal if they were sitting on their butts in a tree all day. They would have to find a way to eliminate the threat, she just wasn't sure how yet. The shields were the issue. Impervious to gunfire and energy weapons, they were making her think outside the box. Luckily, she had a knack for that.

And, lucky for her, the teammate who also had a knack for that was running just ahead of her. Coming up with ideas was always so much easier when she had Daniel to bounce things off of. Her methodical reasoning had always combined well with his intuitive leaps. She could tell by the mechanical way he was moving that his brain was in overdrive as well.

They had covered a few miles before Vala signaled that she needed a rest, her shorter legs having reached their limit. They came up to a break in the trees caused by two of the forest giants having fallen sometime in the not so distant past. Judging by the charred wood, one had been struck by lightning, and had taken its neighbor with it. The two trunks formed a crude shelter of sorts, a place to get out of the sun and with a solid wall of wood at their backs. Nothing could get at them from behind. Another plus was a very climbable tree nearby.

They sat and shared out water and power bars, trying to cool off a bit before they had to get moving again. A few minutes into their rest stop, Vala lifted her head and sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling. "What is that smell? Smells like Daniel's car on a hot day. I hear something too."

As she said that, Sam realized that she too had been vaguely aware of an odor to the air. And, she had to admit, it did smell like Daniel's poor old jeep, which he refused to get rid of despite its terminal oil leak and Cam making fun of it all the time. Poking their heads around the tree trunks cautiously, they looked to see what was causing the odor.

"There, "Daniel said, pointing to a wisp of smoke or steam coming over the top of some bushes nearby.

Making there way cautiously over, keeping an eye on the brush for ebon shapes, they soon found themselves at the edge of a very deep sinkhole. A bit of the edge broke off and tumbled down as they got closer, making them halt a good way from the lip. At first it seemed to be filled partway with very stagnant water. An oily sheen rippled across the surface. Then a fat bubble slowly formed on the surface and popped with a loud "plop" releasing a puff of gas, and Sam realized it wasn't the water that was oily. "It's an oil seep. That's crude oil, with a film of water resting on top. They must be naturally occurring on this planet."

Daniel snorted with mirth. "We could all make enough money to retire if we could only tell people about it. Although, the IOA might still be interested in this find, despite the fact that it isn't naquadah."

Vala perked up. "It's just like this show I watched where this slightly primitive family finds this oil stuff on their property and moves to a snobby city where their neighbors act like they don't like them." She peered over the edge of the seep curiously.

Daniel rolled his eyes and grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the fragile rim. "It's official. You are watching too much TV. And would you get away from there before you fall in. Anything that lands in there isn't coming out again." Daniel stiffened, his eyebrows scrunching together in thought.

Sam turned to him as the preverbal light bulb went on in her head. "I've got-"

"an idea." Daniel finished.

...

" Where does it say in the SGC manual on rescues that the rescuers get captured?"

Teal'c, sitting in the corner of their sparsely furnished cell meditating, didn't respond. Not that Cam expected him to. He had been getting a little repetitive over the several hours they had been in here. They had been firmly herded to a side entrance by several of the huge guard dogs, where they had been met by an equally huge man who had divested them of their weapons and all their equipment right down to their wrist watches. There had been no sense in resisting, not with all those teeth around. They had been pushed through a series of hallways with cages and holding pens on each side until they had been unceremoniously shoved through a small door into this room.

Unfortunately, it had taken them all of two minutes to figure out that there was no way out. The door and walls were seamless, with no visible electronics or controls. There were two cots and a wash basin and that was it. White walls. Very boring, kinda like the VIP rooms back at base, only worse. And no windows to let them know what time of day it was. According to Cam's internal clock, they had been in here at least six hours, which was five hours and fifty nine minutes too long by his reckoning, especially given that he still didn't know what was happening to the rest of his team.

What was odd about this whole thing was that no one had talked to them at all. It was a little unnerving. Cam was used to bad guys that monologue at you for a while before telling you exactly what they had in store for you. It seemed to be the order of business in both the big wide universe and bad movies. But the human that had escorted them to this room had said not a word. And the dogs hadn't been saying much either. Teal'c was under the impression that the burly human had been a servant of some kind, and they hadn't met the guy who was running things around here yet.

Well, all he could say was that someone better talk to them soon, 'cause the silence was starting to make him go a little nuts. Not that Teal'c wasn't a stimulating conversationalist, mind you.

He was on the verge of talking to himself again when, for the first time, his wish was granted and something happened. A large screen dropped soundlessly from the ceiling, making Cam jump in a less than dignified manner and bringing Teal'c out of his meditation and to his feet.

"Now we're talking. Time to get some answers." Cam stood in front of the screen. But no gloating head appeared, rather a moment of static followed by three split images, each containing a picture of green jungle. "What the-? Did we order the subscription to the nature channel?" Teal'c merely gave an eloquent shrug, seemingly as mystified as he was.

As they watched, the images began to change, as if connecting to different cameras. Trees, bushes, more trees, a river, almost as if someone was clicking the buttons on a remote, looking for a channel. And suddenly, there they were, the most beautiful thing Cam had seen in awhile, which was strange considering the scene on the left side of the screen was showing an interesting view of what appeared to be Sam and Jackson's backsides.

Jackson was laying on his stomach with the top half of his body disappearing over the edge of some kind of pit in the ground from which eerie looking wisps of gas trickled sporadically. Sam was crouched next to him on her hands and knees, occasionally gesturing or pointing as she talked. Cam was wishing this entertainment center of theirs had sound, 'cause as usual when dealing with his two brilliant teammates, he had absolutely no idea what they were up to. Vala was the only one facing the camera as she stood over the two scientists, covering them. At one point, she seemed to look right at him, then her eyes slid away as she scanned her surroundings.

At least she looked like she was alright, Cam thought. And, from what little he could see of them, Sam and Jackson looked fine too. A great weight slid off his shoulders at that. While he had been confident that his three lost people could handle anything the galaxy sent them, you never knew. Shit happened. Especially to them.

With nothing else to do, he and Teal'c sat down on one of the cots and watched their friends. It was a little odd seeing the same things happening from three different angles, but he was getting used to it. Teal'c appeared to be having no problems, but he also watched way more TV than he did. Come to think of it, Vala watched a lot of television too. Something about it obviously appealed more to aliens than some earthlings. He didn't watch much except sports, and he wasn't sure Jackson even owned a TV.

Sam stood up after awhile, followed by Jackson, both dusting their hands off against their decidedly grubby pants. All three of them looked like they were on day six of basic training, but they were obviously in one piece. He just wished there was some way to tell them he and Teal'c were here, alive and well.

Now things were getting busy on the screen. Sam had cut several branches off of a particularly thick bush and, after stomping on them a few times for some reason, was sweeping the ground around the pit and a ways off camera, as if erasing any evidence of their presence. Then Daniel reappeared, sans shirt_. "Damn," _Cam thought to himself. _"Wish I could get a copy of this video. I could sell it to all the nurses back at the SGC and make a fortune." _

Jackson was dragging the shirt on the ground in a definite path near the rim of the hole. He did this until he reached Sam and Vala's position and, after shaking it off a few times, put the now very dirty garment back on. They edged away and disappeared from sight.

Cam shook his head. These were people with a plan, he just wished he knew why the plan was necessary. The were setting a trap for something, and he had the suspicion it was for some of those big black mutts. Is that what this was? Some kind of insane hunt?

For the next half hour or so, nothing happened. Cam's short attention span was getting tired of watching a scene in which the only thing interesting that happened was the occasional puff of steam or something wafting up from the ground. He began to speculate what might be down in that hole. Probably some kind of volcanic phenomenon, like a geyser. Or maybe a tar pit or something. He had visited LA as a kid and had gone to La Brea, and the gas emanating from the hole kind of reminded him of that.

An intake of breath from Teal'c brought his attention back to the screen. One of the huge dog-things was making its way slowly into the camera's view. Its nose was plastered to the ground, following the scent trail laid down by Jackson. Cam was starting to get a pretty good idea of the plan when the animal appeared squarely in the center view. It lifted its head and looked around a few times, then went back to its tracking. Or, it would have if a small explosion didn't make the ground collapse under its feet to send it plunging down into the pit, and suddenly Cam knew what Jackson had been doing hanging up to his armpits in that hole. He must have been planting a small C4 charge down there. Very clever.

Sprays of thick looking goop and scummy water flew into the air as the creature presumably thrashed, but a few minutes later, all was still. A few minutes after that, his three teammates emerged from wherever they had been hiding and cautiously inched over to peer down at their victim. The looks of relief were evidence that the animal was probably dead.

Then things went horribly wrong. A gout of flame erupted from the hole, caused by some residual explosive or the electronics on the animals harness, igniting the gas. Sam and Daniel backed up hastily out of one frame, and in the next could be seen making their way away from the inferno, batting thick smoke from their faces, unaware that Vala wasn't with them any more. Cam cursed when he saw Vala standing frozen, staring at the flames with a deer in headlights look. He could tell she was shaking by the way the muzzle of her gun was bouncing around.

"Dammit, she told me that she was over that whole fire thing. I should have known better, but she gave me the puppy dog eyes when I pressed the issue, and like an idiot I dropped it."

"Vala Mal Doran will not easily admit a weakness, but being burned alive would leave a very lasting scar on ones psyche. She is adept at hiding her fears."

"That girl is adept at hiding a lot of things," Cam muttered. "Come on princess! Get out of there! Oh Shit!"

His shout of encouragement turned to one of horror as a second dog came out of nowhere and launched itself at the woman. At the last second Vala shook herself out of her daze as her instincts took over and she took two big steps to the side. The charging animal checked itself before it overshot its target, and, denied the throat hold it seemed to have been going for, instead went low and closed its jaws on her thigh just above her knee, biting down hard.

Vala was pulled off her feet as her face paled from the pain, and the dog loosed its grip on her leg to finish her, but the feisty woman was not one to go down without a fight. She pulled a knife from somewhere and buried it in the side of the dog's neck, the angry snarl on her face easily equal to the one on her attacker.

"Good girl!" As if she could hear him, she ripped the knife out with a spray of dark blood and slammed it into the black chest above her, slicing through one of the straps on its harness.

The huge animal reared back, mouth open in a soundless yowl, and Vala took the opportunity to try to pull herself out from between its paws. Cam could see the blood soaking the pant leg around her knee, and how stiffly the joint was moving. He could also see how precariously close to the edge of the pit all this was all happening. He was having disturbing visions of the ground collapsing, sending both of them down, when motion from another camera caught his attention. The black blur in one frame turned out to be one Dr. Jackson bursting out of the trees in another.

Cam didn't know how much one of these mutts weighed, but in its off balance and distracted state it was no match for 200 pounds of fast moving, determined archeologist. Jackson hit the animal like a linebacker, shoulder landing low in the area right behind its last rib. Cam swore he saw the dog's feet leave the ground from the force of the blow. It whipped its head around and scored a thin line down Daniel's bicep with a fang, but the gesture was a last gasp. The animal scrabbled futilely at the edge of the still smoking pit for an agonizing second before losing its balance and toppling in to join it's companion in death.

Cam couldn't help letting out a whoop of excitement, as if his football team had just scored a touchdown. "That's my wingman!" he yelled, slapping Teal'c on the shoulder in his exuberance. The stoic Jaffa had one of his rare grins plastered on his face as he watched Jackson scoop Vala off the ground and move off into the trees, Sam following and covering their sixes. Cam couldn't wipe the smile from his face. Some of the other team leaders got a little tired of his bragging, but he'd say it over and over. He had a great team.

His smile did fade however, when, instead of another camera picking up his people's movements, the screen went to fuzz. "Hey! Who's got the remote? I need to see how this ends." He didn't know how badly Vala was hurt, and he still didn't know just where the three of them were in the valley below. His exploration of the screen was fruitless. Damn, no buttons.

He was about to employ the tried and true method of getting a TV to do what you wanted, namely whacking it, when the fuzz cleared and Cam and Teal'c found themselves being studied by the wizened face of an older human. He was strong featured, and had probably once been considered handsome, but now his skin sagged on his face, and his eyebrows could be used as dust mops. He narrowed watery brown eyes as he studied them.

"I'm beginning to believe what some of my contacts have been telling me. You Tau'ri are a troublesome lot." His eyes went to Teal'c "Not to mention Jaffa."

Cam shrugged insolently. It's not like he hadn't heard that before. "We try."

"Since you are dressed similarly, I'm correct in assuming you know those three? They have now cost me two of my best hunters, and disposed of one of my promising youngsters somehow. As much as I enjoy a challenge, if it's always going to be this expensive, I'm going to have to block your address from my gate."

"Might be a good idea. Of course, we have other ways of getting here, like the two of us did. Our ship will be coming back to check on us soon. Handy things, battle cruisers. You ever met an Asguard? I loved those little guys, God rest them. Gave us all sorts of cool stuff, some which go boom when you hit things with them. I would be willing to forget all that if you give me back the rest of my team and take us to the gate. This could end all nice and peaceful like. What do you say?"

The man had the grace to look somewhat confused as Cam rattled on, but then he smirked. "I do believe you're bluffing. There is no way to penetrate the barrier I have around the valley. There is nowhere for you to go. When your friends fall to my hunters, and fall they will, it will be your turn. We will see how confident you are then. Goodbye for now." And with that the screen went blank and slid out of sight in the ceiling.

Cam looked at Teal'c. "That's what I get for wanting to hear some monologing. We need to get out there. I didn't like the look of Vala's leg. That's going to handicap them when more of those mutts go after them. Any ideas?"

"None. This room has no obvious weaknesses. If someone like the servant we encountered before were to open the door, we might be able to overpower him somehow, but if he is accompanied by more of the creatures, it would be unwise to try without our weapons." Teal'c was about to say more when, in one of those eerie coincidences, the door slid open. Cam had just enough time to get into a combat ready stance when all rational thought left him.

Cam had seen some pretty weird stuff since starting this gig. But he decided that nothing in recent history freaked him out more than the sight of one of the great black dog things sitting calmly outside the door, its paw pressed against the release button.

...

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey! Here's the next installment. Had to get it done before I go incommunicado on vacation next week. Yellowstone! Yay! Volcanoes and bears, family fun for everyone :D So enjoy, and I'll be back in a couple of weeks.**

...

Vala figured she must have blacked out at some point, because the next thing she remembered she was laying on some soft ground with Daniel's arms wrapped around her_. Well, that's it. I have finally died. I have died and am reliving my fantasies._ It was the only explanation her groggy mind could come up with when finding herself in the very position she had been dreaming about for the past two years. .

Then someone did something very rude to her leg and popped her nice little rose-colored bubble. Vala bit the inside of her cheek to keep from yelping out loud as Sam poured disinfectant into the deep wound above her knee. She reflexively tried to lash out as her self-preservation instincts kicked in, but Daniel tightened his arms and keep her in place. She reached up and squeezed his forearm tightly as the burning pain washed over her. She must have been digging her nails in a bit, because he slipped his hand under hers and let her grip it instead.

She looked up into deep blue eyes as Daniel smiled down at her. "Welcome back."

Vala was still trying to get herself under control, but managed to return the smile, if a little shakily. "How long was I out?" She swept the area with her eyes. They had holed up this time in a thick stand of low limbed trees. The ground beneath them was covered in a deep bed of old leaf litter, which explained the softness. The trees were very close together, close enough that one of the huge hunters would have a hard time passing between the trunks. The position of the sun filtering between the leaves suggested it was about midday, so she hadn't been out too long.

Sam glanced up from where she was wrapping Vala's knee in a bandage and gave her a rueful smile. "Not long enough. I was hoping I could get done with this first. Sorry about that, but if these guys are anything like cats, their mouths are incredibly dirty and full of bacteria. A wound like this could turn septic fast. I've got it pretty well scrubbed out, but it looks like one of the canine teeth got under the patella. We need to get you home and on some IV antibiotics. You too, Daniel."

Vala was distracted from her own discomfort by Sam's last comment and whipped her head up to peer at the man she was still leaning against. He was quick to reassure her. "It's just a scratch," he said as Sam moved over to his right side and began cleaning a deep, messy cut on his bicep. She felt him shudder as the disinfectant entered the wound, but he remained his usual stoic self and didn't react beyond that.

Guilt washed over Vala in a hot sickening rush as she watched Sam bandage his arm. "Oh Daniel. I'm so sorry."

He cocked his head and scrunched his brow, giving her one of his adorable confused looks. "For what?"

"If I hadn't froze up back there none of this would've happened. Now I'm going to slow you guys down and you got hurt. Mitchell asked me if I still had issues with fire, and I just played it off like it was nothing and now look what happened."

She felt him sigh. "Vala, how can that possibly be your fault? I know what it's like, to be afraid. All of us on this team have had experiences that will affect us the rest of our lives. Were all scared of something Vala, trust me, you're not the only one. You were burned to death. I was there, if you recall. That's going to leave some marks, psychologically speaking."

"Well, you never act like it. I'm the one who froze up, while you had to come to my rescue and got hurt in the process."

Daniel snorted, but there was no humor in the sound. "Vala, you have no idea how much just being in this jungle is making my skin crawl. Four years ago Dr. Lee and myself were captured by militant extremists in Honduras while we were looking for the technology that ultimately helped us defeat Anubis's drone army. They thought the artifact was valuable, so they tortured us for information on it."

Daniel closed his eyes, and it sounded like he was forcing the words out.

" They starved us, beat us, and burned us with jumper cables and car batteries. I still have some scars. I didn't break, and it went on for what seemed like hours, then days. Then, when I finally managed to get us out of there, they chased us through the jungle like animals, then shot me like one. The last thing I heard before Jack gunned them down was the leader threatening to skin me with a machete. Now I get tense if I walk through any forest with trees taller than I am. Bill's the same way. It's something I've learned to deal with. Among other things."

He looked down at her with a sad smile. "Every time you see a fire, you will be taken back to that time where you were hurt, but with some more years between you and it, it will get easier. Trust me."

Vala was stunned. She had heard references to the event that he was talking about, mainly from Cameron and his eerie encyclopedic knowledge of past SG-1 mission reports, but she had no idea how bad it had really been. She looked over at Sam, who had been listening to the exchange quietly. The pained expression on her face told Vala that there were some parts in that story that even she had never heard before.

Vala was just glad he finally felt comfortable enough with her to tell her these things. Of all the horrible thing that had happened to him, it had been the hurts caused by his own people that had left some of the deepest scars. It was very like her own experiences. It made her feel closer to the person who had quickly become the best friend she had ever had. She squeezed his hand in thanks, and was thrilled to get a squeeze in return.

Comforted, and now that the pain was ebbing slightly, she was suddenly unable to keep her eyes open. She dozed off to the sound of Sam and Daniel talking.

When she again opened her eyes, the sun was shining through the trees at a different angle and the grove was silent. Sam was propped up against a tree nearby, gun cradled in her lap, whittling the end of a stout pole into a point. She glanced over at her and, seeing she was awake, gave her a quirky smile. Confused, Vala then realized that she still had her warm backrest. Soft, even breathing was coming from just over her head as Daniel slept with his arms supporting her, his chin resting on his chest. Since he seemed content with her laying against him, she was more than content to do so. Moving was something she wasn't looking forward to.

"Don't we need to get going?" she asked Sam quietly. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Don't worry. It's only been about an hour, and I have the feeling that we're going to need the rest. They're going to be hitting us harder the closer we get to the compound, so I decided to make some force field proof weapons. "

She held up the spear she had been making and made a face at it. Vala supposed a pointy stick would seem ridiculously low-tech for the scientist.

" That, and I make it a point to let Daniel sleep for as long as possible if he nods off like this. He doesn't sleep well, and I don't think he got too much last night."

"No, he didn't." Vala shook her head in amusement. "What is it about him that makes you guys want to mother him? You and General Jack. Even Teal'c. He's a big boy, you know."

"Because I'm on a team of mother hens, and Sam is the head high hen," a humor filled voice rumbled behind Vala. Daniel's eyes were still closed, but his mouth was twisted in a familiar smirk.

Sam snorted rudely. "How many times have you forgotten to eat when we're not around?"

"Humph. You can talk miss" All I Ate For Every Meal For Three Days Straight Was Blue Jell-o""

Vala giggled as Sam stuck her tongue out at him.

Daniel just rolled his eyes tolerantly. "And how are you feeling?"

It took Vala a moment to realize that he was talking to her, and she did a bit of a self analysis, finding her knee to be a vague ache Well, that would change as soon as she tried to move. "Not too bad at the moment." She tried to lever herself up in preparation for getting to her feet, but as soon as she tried to flex her injured joint, it betrayed her. "Nope, that's not going to work. Damn, " she snarled in frustration. "This is so stupid. I'm sorry for slowing us down."

Daniel eased out from under her and stood up, stretching until a vertebra in his back popped. "Don't worry, we'll think of something. The easiest thing would be for me to carry you."

"Daniel, we're going to be going uphill a lot, and you're probably going to have to fight. You should just leave me here and come back for me when you two beat this stupid hunt."

Sam made an exasperated noise, and Daniel echoed the snort. "Okay, there's two problems with your little plan. One, there's no way in hell we're leaving you here. Two, it's not like you weigh as much as Teal'c, for crying out loud. If you ride on my back, I'll still have my hands free." He gave her that over-the-glasses look she found impossible to resist. "I'm not leaving anyone behind in this jungle."

Now knowing where he was coming from, she just nodded. Not that arguing with him was ever easy anyway.

Getting an idea, Sam helped him redistribute some of the contents of his pack and put it on, not to the shoulder clips but sideways around his waist, the straps snug tight just above his hips. She then helped Vala to stand and gave her something to lean on while Daniel crouched down. Vala draped herself across his back and wrapped her arms securely around his neck as he stood. She hissed in pain as she got her legs situated, but the pack took her weight and made a secure seat. Once her knee realized this, the pain subsided again.

Daniel asked her if she was comfortable as Sam handed him a second spear, and Vala could honestly say that she was. His broad back was warm and he moved smoothly as he and Sam made their way out of the grove, Sam taking rear guard. Vala, tired despite her nap, rested her head on Daniel's shoulder. Not that she liked being hurt, but she could definitely get used to this.

...

As the afternoon wore on, Sam started to get used to the murmur of quiet voices ahead of her as Vala and Daniel talked quietly. Since all the two of them usually did on missions was argue, this was a pleasant change. It also seemed to be a positive sigh that he was finally letting the cheerful woman in a bit. It was about time. If anyone deserved some happiness in their lives for once, it was those two.

That, and she had a lot of money riding in a certain base pool concerning her two teammates.

The trees began to thin as they reached the slope that signaled that they had finally reached the far cliff. The strange habitation perched far above them on the cliff like a vulture, its windows glinting like eyes in the late afternoon light.

"Look at that. It must be built right into the rock. Probably into the cliff itself. These has to be some kind of entrance at the base for the hounds to get in and out."

Daniel glanced back at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "So, do we just go up and ring the doorbell, or what?"

"I'll ring the doorbell. With a missile," Vala muttered, her chin resting on Daniel's shoulder.

"Well, first we have to get up there. That's a long way to go with no trees to climb." Sam could see that the slope was a horrible place to be, tactically. Going up an almost vertical hill with no cover was not her idea of a good time. And while Daniel was strong, and was holding up well, Vala's weight would handicap him in the long run, especially on the steep slope.

And they needed to be ready for anything. She had the feeling that their captor disliked losing. He would probably up the ante now that they were so close to their goal. She gripped her spear tighter, alerting at every sound coming from the surrounding vegetation.

It was this hyper alertness that saved her life.

A scrape of claw on stone was their only warning as a hound launched itself through the air directly at her from the top of boulder it had been hiding behind. Luckily, Sam was already moving. Swinging her spear around, she jammed the butt of it against another rock, the point zeroing in on the charging animal. Unable to stop for its momentum, it landed on the point with all its weight, knocking Sam violently to the ground. She rolled automatically, pulling her knife from its sheath as she did.

Coughing growls filled the air as the hound dragged itself away, the spear jutting obscenely from its chest. It had happened so fast that had been no time to think, but now that it was over, Sam found herself shaking with reaction. That had been too close. A moment later, she felt Daniel's hand on her arm. "Sam. You in one piece?"

"Yeah, I'm fine thanks." She stood and worked on slowing her breathing. She glared at the boulder strewn slope. " So now what? There could be dozens of the damn things hidden on that slope."

Daniel looked thoughtful as, by unspoken mutual consent, they made their way back into some heavier cover. "I don't think he has that many, actually. He's been sending them after us either singly, or in pairs. He could have just mobbed us and gotten this over with a while ago. Part of it is the entertainment value, I'm sure, but I think some of it is that his stock of hunters is limited." He glanced in the direction the mortally wounded hound had gone. "And getting more limited by the minute."

"Let's just sharpen some more sticks and kill them all, then." Vala's voice had a certain grumpy edge to it, and Sam studied her friend. The woman's face was flushed slightly, and perspiration matted her bangs to her forehead, but she was shivering.

Crap.

Daniel met her eyes and nodded slightly. Of course he had noticed, considering the way Vala was pressed to his back. Vala was sick. Sam didn't have to undo the dressing on her leg to know that the wound was probably red and angry looking. Sam wondered if the bacteria found in the mouths of their hunters was extra virulent, like a Komodo Dragon's. It kind of made sense. It made the hunt that much more interesting if every bite became almost instantly septic.

"Sam!"

Sam jerked her head up at Daniel's yell. He took a step forward and hurled his spear at the black shape rushing through the grass at them. The spear grazed it, she heard the angry yowl, but the animal kept coming. There was a tree only a few feet away, and she made for it, Daniel right behind her. He gave her a boost into the branches, the lower ones small enough to creak alarmingly beneath her weight. She got a bit higher onto something a little sturdier, then reached down for Vala. The other woman reached both hands up to her, and Sam hauled her up, knowing that this had to be hurting her injured leg, but there being little she could do about it.

Sam looked down just in time to see the hound land on Daniel, bear him to the ground, and reach its fangs toward his throat.

...

As he watched Sam pull Vala into the tree, Daniel knew with a certainty that he wasn't going to make it this time. The thud of paws and the crackling of twigs announced the hunter's arrival, and he had just enough time to throw his hands up in a pitiful attempt to ward off the massive animal as it hit him like a ton of bricks. The breath was knocked out of his lungs as he hit the ground with bruising force, the hound on top of him. He dimly heard Sam and Vala's voices screaming his name as he gripped the loose skin of the jowls, desperately trying to keep those snapping jaws from his neck. He poured every ounce of strength he had into the effort, only to feel the huge head inch ever closer. With surprising clarity, he felt blood seep through the bandage and down his skin as the slash on his arm broke open from the strain.

Then fate staged one of those little interventions it liked to do for him every once and awhile.

Just as he felt the very tips of those fangs brush the sides of his throat, a shuddering impact from the side threw both he and his attacker across the ground. _Thank god for Sam_, Daniel thought even as the air was driven from his lungs once again. But when the grayness finally cleared from his eyesight and he looked over, he saw it wasn't Sam that had interfered, but a second black beast. It and the first were rolling together in a bundle of fangs and claws, and Daniel scrambled to get out of the way of two huge predators having a serious difference of opinion practically on top of him.

The first thing he noticed as he rolled to his feet was that the new hound wasn't wearing a harness. So, not bullet proof. Daniel brought up his P90, miraculously still clipped to his vest, and focused his aim on this new, defenseless, enemy. He could see Sam doing the same from the tree.

"Jackson! Hold your fire! Gun down! You too Carter!"

Daniel nearly dropped his weapon, more in shock than from the order. There, trotting down the slope, was one Cameron Mitchell. The pleasure, mixed with no little confusion at seeing his missing CO here of all places, was replaced by horror as a long, low shadow materialized out of the grass directly behind him. "Mitchell, look out!"

"Cam, behind you!" Sam yelled at the same time.

Daniel swung his gun up at the hound stalking his friend, but by that time the younger man had reached him and pushed the muzzle toward the ground firmly. "Jackson, damnitall, I said gun down."

"But-" Daniel's confused and adrenalin hyped brain was having issues sorting out what was happening around him. The brawl going on behind him had ended, and the unfettered animal was chasing his attacker off. It paced the perimeter of the trees, its low growls almost sounding like disgruntled mutters.

The hound that had been following Mitchell had calmly walked up to them and seemed to be, for lack of a better word, listening. There was something different about it. When Daniel looked into its eyes and met a warm intelligence in its brown gaze, rather than the cold yellow orbs of the hunters, he relaxed marginally.

"Have we been making new friends, Mitchell?"

"Yup." Mitchell sounded inordinately proud of himself. "Just good old southern charm."

Daniel tensed as brush crackled nearby, but it was only the welcome sight of Teal'c entering the clearing. By this time Sam had dropped from the tree and reached up to help Vala down. Daniel started their way, but Teal'c beat him to it, gently lifting the injured woman down and cradling her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a firm hug, which Sam echoed a moment later. As soon as the trio made their way over to where he and Mitchell stood, Sam hugged Mitchell until his eyes popped. Not wanting to be left out, Vala reached out from Teal'c arms and ruffled Cam's hair fondly, making the young Colonel blush with pleasure.

Teal'c juggled Vala around until he could get a hand free to clasp Daniel's arm in a warrior's greeting. "It is good to see you well, DanielJackson."

"Likewise buddy, likewise. We've been pretty worried. How-?"

Mitchell raised a hand. " Aht. Let's save the story time for a place a little more secure." He looked down at his silent companion who had been watching their exchanges with interest. "There a place like that nearby?"

Fluffing its whiskers, the animal made a peculiar chirping noise and sauntered off in the opposite direction from the compound. When it reached the tree line, it paused and looked at them over its shoulder expectantly. "Yeah, yeah, we're coming." Mitchell gave them all a mocking bow. "You heard the lady people, let's go."

Daniel strode next to Cam as they followed their guide. "Lady?"

"Yup. The old guy only uses the males to hunt. The ones that are helping us are the females, and they're not too happy about the way things are run around here. They seem to think we have a better chance than most at helping them. "

"You can communicate with them? They're sentient?"

"Well, our communication so far has been somewhere along the lines of "What's that girl? Timmy's in the well?", but these critters are damn smart. I think talking is the only thing they can't do." He grinned. "You should see them open doors."

Daniel was starting to feel the ache in his stomach that always came when he took a life, now that he knew the two beings he had just killed were more than simple animals. The guilt must have been evident on his face, because Mitchell reached over and clasped his shoulder as they walked. "You didn't have any choice, and you know it. The real bad guy is the dude upstairs calling all the shots. There's some kind of mind control thing in those harnesses that makes the hunters do what he wants. If we do this right, we can help them."

Daniel was still deep in thought as they followed their guide down into a shallow ravine with thick, shady trees overshadowing it. She signaled they were there by laying down on the smooth dirt, panting.

Daniel sat down with his back against the cool, moist earth of the ravine wall. Oh, that felt good. He couldn't wait to get out of this sauna. As hot as it was, though, Vala was still shivering as Teal'c lowered her to the ground next to him. She gave him a wan smile that did nothing to hide her misery. Teal'c sat on the other side of her and in silent agreement, he and Daniel sandwiched her in between them, until she was almost off the ground. Surrounded by their warmth, Vala relaxed against Daniel and quickly fell asleep.

"How's the princess doing?" Mitchell kept his voice low.

"She's pretty sick. She was bitten when…"

"I know," Mitchell interrupted. "We saw the whole thing. "He gave Daniel one of his sudden grins. "Sure you've never played football, Jackson? 'Cause that was a hell of a tackle."

Daniel and Sam shot glances at each other. "What do you mean you saw everything?"

"Just what I said. Ok, let's start at the beginning here. What happened to you guys after you went through the 'gate?"

Sam and Daniel took turns filling their two teammates in on what had been happening before and during the hunt. Mitchell listened closely, asking a few questions here and there. When they were done he sat back and shook his head. "You know? There's going to come a day when we all decide we're getting to old for this."

Daniel rubbed a hand through his hair. He'd been finding a few grays lately. Now he knew where all of Jack's had come from. "No kidding. So what about you two? I have to say, we were pretty worried. We knew an iris of some sort had gone up on the 'gate, we just didn't know how far you were behind us."

"Landry probably saved our lives with that little delay, "Mitchell chuckled. "By the time we got to the top of the ramp, Walter had noticed something squirrelly about the signal, and hit the emergency deactivation."

"Good old Walter."

"Yup. Buying him a weeks worth of real food for lunch. Anyway, to make a long story short, Teal'c and I hitched a ride on the Odyssey, got here, got captured, got released, and found you."

They sat in silence for a while, listening tom their guide snoring a few feet away. Daniel involuntarily jumped when a second hound emerged from the bushes above them and leapt gracefully down into the ravine., but relaxed when he saw it was one of the un-harnessed females. The first one woke and the two conversed. The linguist in Daniel automatically started listening for familiar sounds.

And to his great surprise, found some.

The aliens language seemed to be mostly made up of various growls, moans, and hisses, but every so often the sounds would string together to form what almost seemed like a word. Not in English, but something else that sounded tantalizingly familiar. Until it came to him.

Egyptian. They were speaking Ancient Egyptian.

**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello! Now that summer is winding down, I'm back. I'm actually looking forward to winter this year. I'm ready for a break. Enjoy!**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

…...

Daniel's ancient Egyptian was a little rusty, or as rusty as one could be with a five-thousand year old dead language, but it was enough like Abydonian that he still had a good grasp of it.

*You speak this tongue?* he called to the two aliens, enunciating as best he could.

The looks of confusion on his teammate's faces were nothing compared to the shock the creatures showed. Their ears went up, their eyes widened, and he had the feeling that, had they had been human, their jaws would have been hitting the ground.

The older one, the one he had mentally tagged as "Mitchell's Friend" rose and stalked gracefully over to where he was sitting. She stood over him, gazing into his eyes intently, as if trying to get the measure of him. He could feel her breath ruffling his hair. The tips of two-inch long fangs poked from beneath her lips. It was more than a little disconcerting to be under such heavy scrutiny by a large predator at extremely close range, but then she began to talk, and he forgot everything but the translation running through his mind. Words were words, no matter what the speaker looked like.

It was hard to pick out those words between all the rumbles, growls, and hisses, but he soon got the hang of it. *You speak like Partners. Why* There was a heavy emphasis on the word partner, and it became capitalized in his mind.

* I speak many tongues. Who are the Partners?*

*Partners. Hunt together, live together. Long ago.*

So intent was he on understanding her speech that he forgot his team, until a not-so-quiet cough came from nearby. "Jackson? You want to let the rest of the class in on this?" Mitchell said, his eyebrows raised.

"What? Oh. Sorry. I just realized that they were making some sounds as they talked that sounded really familiar. It's Egyptian, or rather, ancient Egyptian. It's not very clear, but it's there."

"How in the hell can a dog from another planet speak an Earth language?"

Daniel sighed. "Well, if you'd just give me a moment, I was about to ask that."

*Not dog.*

Daniel looked back at the large black creature still standing in front of him. If anything, she was looming even more. "Excuse me?"

*Not dog. Is Bast.* There was no mistaking the irate tone.

"Jackson?"

"Well, they can't speak English but they certainly can understand it. She heard you call her a dog, and seems a little put out by it. They call themselves Bast, I'm assuming after the Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet."

*My apologies.* he said, turning back to her. *My friend meant no offence.*

The alien (or Bast, as he needed to remember) glared over her shoulder at Mitchell for a moment, then fluffed her whiskers at him, an odd croon coming from her throat. Daniel had the distinct feeling that Cam had made a bit more of an impression with his "southern charm" than he originally thought. He thought he might just keep that info to himself until he needed some blackmail fodder later.

Daniel reached out and gently touched the Bast on a foreleg, bringing her attention back to him. *Do you have a name?*

She cocked her head at him.

He touched his chest. "Daniel."

*Dan'yel*

Daniel jerked, despite himself. He hadn't heard his name pronounced like that in a long time. Memories of his lost family tried to overwhelm him, but he shoved them back to where they had been stored years ago. He smiled instead, and nodded. He reached out and touched her chest.

*Eshe*

"What was that, Daniel?" Sam asked. She had been silent so far, watching curiously.

"She just told me her name. Eshe. It means "life". Daniel wanted to keep her talking, to help him understand the language better, so he asked her to tell them about her race, and tried to keep up as she launched into a fast, long explanation.

" They live in family groups, all members interrelated. Their society is matriarchal, led by the oldest female. That's Eshe. This is not their home planet. They come from one where the Bast work beside humans. Partners. Probably humans of Egyptian decent, judging by the language. This group was brought here many generations ago by The Hunter, as they call him. They've been slaves ever since. Even Eshe has never seen their home."

He felt Teal'c shift uncomfortably next to him. Evidently, parts of this were hitting a little close to home.

"Wait." Sam interjected. "If the oldest among them was born here, how do they know what home is like?"

Daniel relayed the question, and got an interesting answer back. "Because she contains the previous matriarch's memories. Not just the one before her but all of them, back through the generations. Some of it is probably from word of mouth story-telling, but I also get the impression that there's some kind of racial memory at work here. Something inherited."

He started to ask more, but at that moment, Vala moaned slightly in her sleep and pressed up closer to his side. Her body was radiating heat in an alarming way. Eshe shifted her focus on her at the noise, and regarded her closely. She leaned down and ran her long, sensitive whiskers across the sleeping woman's face which, unfortunately, woke her up.

Vala opened her eyes and gasped at the sight of the huge black head mere inches from her face and literally tried to merge herself in between Daniel's body and the soil behind them. He grabbed her arms while Teal'c held down her legs, effectively immobilizing her injured knee. "Vala! Vala, it's all right. This is a friend, she's not going to hurt you."

Vala stopped struggling and lay against him, breathing heavily. Too heavily. She tried to speak but it came out as a raspy cough. He dug out his canteen and handed it to her. She never took her eyes off of the Bast as she drank. She jumped when Eshe turned to Daniel and spoke.

*Is sick?*

"Yes."

*Is bite?*

Daniel nodded and her ears angled back, whether in anger or annoyance Daniel couldn't tell. She turned to the younger female and growled something too fast for Daniel to pick up. A moment later the young Bast trotted past them and disappeared into the jungle.

"Daniel? What's going on?" There was just something inherently wrong with such a weak voice coming from Vala.

"Oh nothing, just our resident Dr. Dolittle here has been talking to our new friends." Mitchell smirked at Daniel's eye roll. The smirk turned into a frown of concern as he turned to Vala. "How you doing, princess?"

"I feel like the time I won a drinking contest against an entire crew of smugglers just so I could steal their escape pod and get away, then proceeded to land said pod on a planet where the average temperature was about 150 degrees. In the shade."

"So, your head hurts and you have a fever?"

The look she gave him could have melted ice.

Sam got up and came over to them, rummaging in her pack as she skirted around the big Bast, who was listening to them with interest. She pulled out the first aid kit and tugged two packets of pills out. "Now that you're awake, you can take some stuff. We have some painkillers and some broad-range antibiotics." She opened the packets, and jumped as Eshe pushed her nose forward to smell them. She growled something.

"She says that their medicine is better." Daniel translated as the Bast continued to talk. "She sent her granddaughter to get some."

"How do we know it will work on us, or not have any nasty side effects?" Sam asked.

"The Hunter uses the plants to make a cure for their bites. Apparently it's a prize for the few who actually win his game." Daniel shrugged. "They would know, I guess. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt."

Sam looked at Vala, who shrugged. "It can't make things any worse."

"Okay. But you still need a bandage change. You too, Daniel."

Daniel suddenly remembered the wound on his arm. Now that he thought about it, it hurt. It hurt a lot. It had torn open when he had been attacked, and dried blood was crusted into the sleeve of his shirt and in rivulets across his back. He gently leaned Vala against Teal'c's warm bulk and got up, stretching carefully. There was a vague ache in his muscles that he at first attributed to sitting against the cool, moist ground for too long. He wasn't getting any younger, after all. But as he stood watching Sam change the bandage on Vala's leg, he was slowly becoming aware of some other problems. He was chilled, more chilled than he should be in the heat of the day, cool ground or not. A rhythmic pounding behind his eyes was starting to make itself felt.

Great. Just great.

They all looked with morbid fascination as Sam peeled the bandage away from Vala's knee, and Daniel had a good idea of what his arm looked like at the moment. The skin around the punctures was red and angry looking. Copious amounts of clear fluid seeped from them. While Sam gently swabbed the area and rewrapped it, Vala closed her eyes and leaned against Teal'c, who good naturedly obliged by shifting his body so she was more comfortable.

Sam was heading his way with the first aid kit when a reprieve of sorts arrived. Two Bast came down the washout, the one in the lead carrying a mouthful of leaves. The second was slinking, its head down, in a manner that could almost be described as embarrassed. As it came closer, Daniel couldn't help but notice that this one was male, but without a control harness. He was limping slightly as he crept up to Eshe.

While her granddaughter lay the leaves on the ground near Vala, Eshe growled and moaned at the male for a while, and his head sunk lower and lower, until his muzzle was brushing the ground. Whoever he was, he was receiving a serious dressing down from the matriarch. Then it was over. Eshe gave him a perfunctory lick across his head and went to sniff the leaves that had been brought. The male lifted his head and stared straight at Daniel intently. It was then Daniel noticed a red, raw weal around his neck, and with a start he realized that this was the young male they had left tied to a tree the day before.

…...

"Sam." She looked up at Daniel's warning, and she gasped when she spotted the telltale wound around the newcomer's neck.

The young male began to stalk toward her, his eyes narrowed. It was hard to read the intent in those green-brown eyes, but this particular Bast couldn't be having good thoughts about them. The only thing that was keeping her hand off her sidearm was the fact that Eshe was watching, perfectly calm. The older female seemed to have their best interest in mind, but Sam found herself wondering if there was some sort of clause in the Bast's traditions for revenge.

So it was to her immense surprise that the young Bast, on reaching her, sank to the ground at her feet and rested his massive head on her boots. He rolled his eyes, moaned mournfully, and said something. She looked at Daniel. He had a amused grin on his face.

"He's apologizing and asking if you could find it in your heart to use some of your medicine on him, since we're the cause of his pain." Eshe put in a few words. "This is Eshe's youngest grandson, Ishaq. Yesterday was his first hunt. Even though the females aren't supposed to go out during a hunt, his sister was worried about him and followed him."

Sam looked down at the pitiful lump pinning her feet in place. The moans were starting to sound slightly melodramatic at this point. "I think you're going to live. Let me help Vala, then I'll come look at you." She used the same tone she did when dealing with unruly young Airmen. Ishaq sighed gustily and reluctantly lifted his head, freeing her feet.

Sam sat down to examined the leaves that had been brought. They were tough and faintly aromatic. She asked Eshe how they should be prepared, and waited for Daniel's translation automatically.

His brow furrowed at the response. "Umm, something about drawing out the essence. Or something like that. Maybe in an infusion or tea?"

"I don't like tea," Vala grumbled.

"Tough!" three voices instantly replied.

"I guess I'll be of some use here and start a fire," Cam muttered.

"While you're doing that, I guess I'll see to our poor wounded friend here." At Sam's words, Ishaq scooted stiffly toward her and repositioned himself so that his head rested in her lap. He gazed up at her and crooned. Sam couldn't help but smile. "You're a flirt, aren't you?" The croon turned to groans of pleasure as she began to slather cream into the ugly weal around his neck. She had secretly been wanting to touch that velvety black hide since the first time she had seen him, and she was not disappointed. It was like touching warm suede.

When she had finished putting a dressing on his neck, he lifted his paw and waved it in front of her, and she could see why he had been limping. His pads were worn down and raw in the front, and his claws were cracked to the core and covered in dried blood, bits of dirt and vegetation caught in them. On examination, both his front feet were like that." What happened here?"

This time it wasn't Eshe that answered, but the younger female. She talked for awhile, while Daniel listened quietly. Sadness and anger flitted across his face. "When the males wear the harness, they become blind to everything but the hunt. They don't feel hunger and they are conditioned to ignore pain. When Sagira-oh, this is Sagira, by the way- when she finally found where we had left him tied up she had hardly recognized him, even though this is her younger brother. Because of the harnesses controlling his mind, he had gone mad from not being allowed to continue hunting, and had done this to himself trying to escape. She found him only hours after he was trapped. When she freed him from the harness he came back to himself and she got him out of our rope."

Sam rested her hand on Ishaq's neck below the bandage. "I'm sorry we had to do that to you."

The handsome young male lifted his head and brushed his whiskers across her face in a feather light caress that she needed no translation for. With that she got busy gently cleaning and soothing his battered paws while Cam got the fire going. Soon the leaves were steeping in a metal canteen full of boiling water. Vala was dozing next to Teal'c, who had his eyes closed in meditation. Daniel was sitting next to the small fire, deep in conversation with the two female Bast. Sam spied the red crusted bandage on his arm and remembered she had yet to check his wound.

She finished putting cream around one last cracked claw and patted the huge paw in her lap. "I think you'll be fine, just take it easy for a little bit, okay?" Ishaq bumped her head with his affectionately, and got up to go lay between his grandmother and sister. "Daniel. Your turn."

He glanced up at her, then looked down guiltily. Sam instantly knew the signs of a Dr. Jackson who didn't want to be examined for some reason or another. She instantly got suspicious. He liked to play down anything that was wrong with him, and that's what he was doing now. "Daniel," she said again, in a tone that brooked no argument. He sighed and came over to sit next to her, resignation in every movement. She undid the bandage on his bicep and bit off an angry exclamation. The wound had torn open further, but that wasn't the main problem. The skin around it was streaked with the red veining of blood poisoning, and when she put her hand on his arm to turn it, an unnatural heat radiated from his skin.

She narrowed her eyes at him and he smiled sheepishly. "And when were you planning on telling the rest of us that you were sick too?"

"I had just noticed when you were cleaning Vala's leg. Then I just got distracted. It's not that bad. Really."

She continued to glare at him. His response was to bat his eyelashes at her, something that, like half the other women in the galaxy, she wasn't immune to. And he knew it too, the sneak. Giving in, she shook her head and started to clean the gash. She probably wasn't being as gentle as she could have been, but he bore it as his due and didn't say anything. Just as she was finishing, there was a call in Bast speech from the fire. "Eshe says the medicine is ready."

"Lucky for you," she said, in a tone that told him he would be taking some of that medicine if she had to sit on him and pour it down his throat.

…...

Everyone still had some doubts about this medicine, Daniel included. When they strained the concoction into another canteen, the thick fluid was a dark green and smelled, frankly, green. Vala eyed the cup handed to her with serious misgivings.

"Can't I just wait until we get home and Carolyn can patch me up? I'm sure she won't give me stuff that looks and smells like pond muck."

"Vala, we don't know how long that's going to be," Daniel said patiently. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm going to be taking the stuff too."

"Fine," she said with a sigh. She lifted the cup to her lips and wrinkled her nose. Visibly steeling herself, she gulped down the contents in one go. She gagged and sputtered horribly until someone handed her a canteen of fresh water to rinse her mouth out. She glared at Eshe. "Are you sure this stuff isn't some other form of sadistic amusement your Hunter thought up?"

Eshe huffed in what must have been Bast laughter.

After that performance, Daniel was almost thinking that the slight discomfort he was in was better than the alternative, but Sam was giving him one of her no nonsense looks that said there was no use arguing. Then there was Mitchell, who seemed to be taking an unholy glee in pouring out some of the brew and handing it to him. Even Teal'c was watching him with interest. He sighed. Might as well get it over with.

By the time he finished coughing and wiping the tears from his eyes, all three of the Bast were laughing at him and Vala was smiling in satisfaction. Dear god, that stuff was worse than green NyQuil. He just hoped it worked the first time, 'cause he wasn't taking any more.

"Well folks," Mitchell said while he kicked out the small fire. "Now that we've made our introductions and tended our hurts, we need to plan. So let's talk about this hunt."

Daniel had several questions floating around in his mind, but one was foremost. "Eshe, what exactly happens when someone doesn't reach the compound in time?"

*Trapped. No food. Wait many days, then hunt again.*

Daniel was liking this guy better and better. "She says the Hunter waits until we're weak from starvation, then resumes the hunt."

Sam looked around her. "But this is a rainforest. Wouldn't we be able to forage?"

"Have you seen any birds or other animals in here? All we've seen are insects, most of which are probably poisonous. As for plants, how would we know what was safe?"

"We would not," said Teal'c. "This man has given great thought to this. Perhaps even to the type of vegetation growing here."

"Good point. So, trust nothing. Story of our lives." Mitchell rubbed his chin. "Obviously, we need to get in to the compound and flip whatever switch controls the harnesses. That may be the easy part. Getting past all of the things wearing the harnesses is going to be the hard part."

"Wait, how is getting in the easy part?" Daniel asked, feeling he was missing something. "There are probably sensors or cameras on every inch of that place. There would have to be a door or way in that the Hunter doesn't know about."

"Sure there is, " Mitchell replied smugly. "How do you think me and Teal'c got down here?"

…...

**Kind of a slow chapter, but I had to build thing up and explain some stuff before I could go on. It will be more exciting from now on.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi! I'm back. Sorry about the wait guys, but life kept getting in the way. So, those few of you who haven't given up on me, here you go. **

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

…_..._

"_I think I might actually shock everyone and take some downtime after this one_," Daniel thought to himself. "_Maybe go spend some time with Jack like he's been bugging me to. I should take Vala, Jack thinks she's hilarious. They do have nearly the same sense of the absurd, though I'll have to deal with "Jack the Matchmaker". Huh, could be fun." _

All this was going through his head as he crept around a huge boulder, Sagira pressed against his side. He was grateful for the Bast's presence, because with no moon to light the night, it was nearly pitch black. Maybe that was why his mind was wandering. There wasn't much to look at as they made their way up the steep slope to the compound, relying on the Bast to alert them of danger. The only thing to distract him from his musings was the lingering ache in his joints from the infection.

Mitchell was on her other side, the Bast pacing patiently between them. Ishaq was doing the same with Sam and Teal'c several paces behind them. He found himself keenly aware of Vala's absence, and kind of missed her warm weight on his back. He hated leaving her behind, but while she was no longer in danger from infection, there was no amount of nleaves that could heal the physical damage to her leg in a mere few hours.

They had been discussing how to take her with them, but Eshe had come up with a moderately acceptable solution. She would take Vala around to different hiding places and wait for a all's clear signal from them when their mission was accomplished, then rejoin them, bringing Vala with her. The thought of Vala riding the huge creature around was enough to make him smile, but he couldn't help thinking about the things that could go wrong.

The matriarch must have seen some doubt on his face, because she puffed her whiskers at him in amusement. "_Am old. Cubs say too old to fight. But lot of fight left. Do not worry. I will guard mate._"

He had coughed slightly at that, but couldn't even begin to explain he and Vala's complicated relationship in the Bast's language, so he had merely said, "Thank you".

Now the stone building was looming over them as Sagira made an abrupt direction change and led them in a wide circle around the base, toward a corner of the building out of sight behind a outcrop of massive boulders. By the time they reached the wall, his shins would never be the same after countless collisions with rocks. Judging by some of the other muffled curses he had heard, Sam and Mitchell were in the same boat. If Teal'c was having problems, as usual, he was keeping it to himself.

It got even better when he realized that their entrance was a roughly dug hole that disappeared into the ground. Mitchell must have seen the expression that had flitted across his face, because he was quick to reassure him. "It's alright, it's bigger than it looks. They must have found a crack in the cliff itself to go through, 'cause the dirt ends after a few feet. Teal'c had no trouble fitting through."

Daniel gave him another slightly dubious look, sighed, and followed Sagira's disappearing hindquarters into the hole. Mitchell had been right. After only a few feet of crumbly earthen walls that felt like they would collapse on him at any moment, his hand met smooth rock, and the tunnel widened drastically, to the point where he could crawl on his hands and knees rather than inching his way on his stomach. He traversed several yards in this manner before the tunnel abruptly turned to dirt again and ended in a vertical shaft. He stood up and his head met something soft and loose. Feeling with his hand, he found the end of the tunnel covered with straw. A faint chirp came through as Sagira called to him, whether reassuringly of impatiently he couldn't tell. He pulled himself out over the lip of the hole and literally swam through loose straw until he stumbled out into a weakly lit room. It was a fair sized storage room, two of it's stone walls hidden behind stacks of crates, and of course, the veritable mountain of straw.

Part of the pile started heaving as first Mitchell, then Ishaq followed closely by Sam and Teal'c emerged. Sagira watched the door as the rest of them huddled in the lee of a stack of crates, catching their breath. "So. What's the plan?"

"Stay out of the way of anything with a harness and try to turn the damn things off sounds good," Mitchell said.

"_Free Clan. Females, young. Will help_."

"Ishaq says there are more Bast here who aren't controlled, more females and young. If we free them, they can help us."

"Okay, sounds good. Jackson, that's your job. You can actually tell them things in their own language, calm them down if you have to." He gestured to Sagira, who angled an ear back toward them." Take the lady there with you."

"We should try to find his communications array and maybe slip a message out to the Odyssey. There's a good chance I could find and disrupt the frequency that controls the harnesses from there too, maybe," Sam said.

"Well, that sounds just like a Carter job to me," Cam said, looking pleased that a plan was coming together. " Why don't you take…"

Ishaq chirped at him. Mitchell gave him an amused glance.

"I was going to say that, you know. Take your new best friend with you, though I think he was going to tag along anyway. Me and Teal'c will go after our lovely host. I want to get off of this rock and go home. Air Force is playing Navy at the Academy this weekend and I have tickets I paid an arm and a leg for."

Moving to the door, Cam leaned out and checked the hallway. Daniel smiled as Sagira gave him an irritated look and led the way out, pacing silently down the left hand corridor. Ishaq glanced at Sam and started right. "Good luck, guys " she said, and followed him. Daniel nodded and gripped his P-90 tighter as she disappeared from sight. He and Cam exchanged a glance, then followed Sagira, Teal'c at their backs.

After a few minutes, the hall branched again. Sagira stopped and, using her head, pushed Cam in one direction, then shoved Daniel in another. Cam met his eyes and grinned. " Here we go. Jackson, try not to die."

Daniel smirked as he dutifully recited his part of this little ritual that had started between the two of them. "Mitchell, try to keep your pants on."

Teal'c clapped him on the shoulder. "Take care, DanielJackson. We have a game of Hounds and Jackals to finish, if you recall."

"Of course I remember. I'm winning."

Teal'c gave him one of his slight smiles. "We shall see."

Sagira made an impatient sound and brushed past him, walking fast enough so that he would have to trot to catch up to her. "Alright, I'm coming, I'm coming. Jeez, you're worse than Jack." With one last nod to his teammates, he caught up to his grumbling guide.

He followed her down a very straight hall for awhile before he realized that the floor was beginning to descend slightly. He started to work on a mental map of the place and began to suspect that the building carved out of the cliff was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what was dug out below it. The air began to grow heavy and damp, with a smell reminiscent of childhood trips to various zoos. This was definitely the right direction.

"_Giant_."

He looked at Sagira. "What?"

"_Giant. Big man. Keeper. Must look out for_."

He vaguely remembered a part of Mitchell's story where they had been divested of their belongings by a large, silent human. An assistant of some sort, maybe, and the one who handled the Bast. "We might find him down here?"

"_Yes_."

"Wonderful."

All thought of that left his head as they turned another corner. Several potent curses came bubbling up to the front of his mind as he stared down a corridor lined with bars. Sagira was keeping up a steady chirping and muttering as she passed each one, and he could only follow dumbstruck behind her. Green-brown eyes of various heights shone from each dark cell, from massive adults with eyes almost level with his own down to very young cubs who stumbled forward to stare at him curiously. In all, there had to be a couple dozen of them, their faces pressed to the bars as he began to speak to them in the language of their ancestral Partners. Sagira stopped at one cell to converse with the occupant as he kept walking, trying to reassure the captives despite his shock and steadily growing anger.

This proved to be a mistake. So engrossed was he that he didn't notice the huge hands reaching for him from a open cell until a meaty forearm locked around his neck.

He instinctually dropped his gun to reach up and pry the arm from his airway, but the person holding him was considerably larger and practically had him off the ground. He couldn't get any leverage at all with his boots just brushing the stone. Another hand reached up and nimbly pressed the clip on his gun harness, sending the P90 skittering across the floor.

This sound and his strangled yelp had alerted Sagira, who came barreling down the hall with an earth shattering roar. Any normal person, when faced with 400 pounds of charging predator, would have dropped the half throttled archaeologist to deal with this new threat, but the big man merely shifted his grasp to free up an arm. In a movement surprisingly graceful and fast for such a large person, he expertly reached out and, at the apex of Sagira's leap, struck her in a certain spot behind the hinge of her jaw, and the Bast collapsed like a puppet with it's strings cut. She hit the floor with a sickening thud and skid across the stone, fetching up against a set of bars at the end of the hall.

A furious roaring began all around them.

"_This guy must know the Bast's every weakness, damn it. He knew exactly where that nerve cluster was_," he thought as he continued to claw ineffectually at the arm around his neck. The arm was covered in a thick leather vambrace, so clawing ineffectually was really all he could do at the moment. His hold on the arm was the only reason he was still conscious, so trying for his sidearm or knife was out of the question. He tried to think back over his years of hand to hand on how to get out of a situation like this, but this was like sparing with Teal'c, normal rules didn't apply and you just tried to stay alive.

The edges of his vision were starting to gray as his brain raced. Out of desperation and out of options, he began to swing his legs back and forth, trying to throw the man off balance. This actually saved him. The man was just turning around to see where Sagira had ended up, and had to take a big step to the side due to the pendulum effect. This brought the back of his legs in range of a sneaky claw swipe from the cell behind him.

The big man grimaced and swung around, close enough to the bars for Daniel to brig his legs up and plant his boots firmly on them. He shoved with all his might, propelling them across the narrow hall to slam into the bars behind them. The air left the man's lungs with an "ooof", then snarled silently again when a Bast grabbed his pant leg through the bars. Beset on all sides and hopelessly distracted, his arm loosened to the point that Daniel could get an elbow jab into the man's side, and with a grunt of effort, he was free.

His legs gave way slightly as he was released, but he turned the fall into a controlled roll that got some distance between himself and his attacker, shaking his head to get the blood flowing properly to his brain again. This also let him get his first good look at his opponent.

He realized that his comparison to fighting Teal'c wasn't that far off. This "keeper" was at least as tall as his Jaffa friend, and nearly as large. Long reddish hair and a thick, braided beard made him look somewhat Norse-like. He was wearing thick leather armor that went from his wrists all the way up to enclose his neck in a protective shield. He supposed it was a necessary accessory when dealing with large carnivores who really didn't like you. With a sigh, he pulled his Berretta.

"Ok. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. I personally like the easy way, the one where I don't shoot you, you lock yourself in that empty cage over there, and I just forget about you for awhile. How does that sound?"

Evidently that wasn't sounding too good judging by the smirk on his new friend's face as he charged down the hall at him. "Ah crap." Daniel sighted and fire two shots, aiming to disable rather than kill. Later, when he had time to think about it, he supposed he really shouldn't have been surprised when the bullets pinged harmlessly off of a personal shield. But right that moment, it was pretty damn surprising.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

The keeper came at him with the same grace he used to take down Sagira. Daniel dropped his now useless gun and kicked it down the hall, Jack's voice in his head telling him to never leave a weapon where your enemy could get it and use it against you. He managed to get his guard up just in time to block a punch that felt like a battering ram on his arm. He danced out of range desperately, shaking the limb to get the pins and needles out. He wasn't going to be able to take many more hits like that.

The man closed the distance again, going high, so Daniel went low, getting under his guard and driving his fist into his opponent's solar plexus with all his strength. The keeper grunted deep in his abdomen and started to double over slightly. Unfortunately, he recovered far faster than Daniel expected and he just couldn't avoid the fist that crashed into the side of his face, sending his glasses flying to who knows where.

Daniel staggered back a few feet, trying to clear the blood from a split eyebrow from his eye, the whole right side of his face numb. It wasn't going to be numb for long, and he wasn't looking forward to when the pain hit. That, and the fact that most of his immediate surroundings were now out of focus, meant he was rather handicapped at the moment.

Movement behind the keeper caught his attention as Sagira levered herself up on her forelegs, hindquarters still laying limply on the floor. Her ribcage was heaving with the effort, but her gaze was steady as it met his. He had a pretty good idea what she wanted of him.

Distract him.

"_Easier said than done_," he thought as he ducked out of the way of those powerful arms again.

The silence of his opponent was a bit unnerving, and getting more so the longer this went on. Daniel didn't know if the man was physically mute or just very taciturn. Teal'c used silence to great effect in keeping those he fought off balance. Worked great for interrogations too. The first couple of years Teal'c had been on the team, he had been so quiet that many people had assumed he **couldn't** talk. Teal'c still did much of his communicating with his eyes and facial expressions, even though compared with those early years, nowadays he was a veritable chatterbox .

He worked on doing nothing but staying out of reach, ducking and weaving and making himself as big a nuisance as possible. He made sure the big man had to come to him, leading him steadily away from Sagira and whatever she was doing. Unfortunately, that only lasted so long.

The steady scraping sound of Sagira dragging herself across the floor finally registered to the keeper's senses, and he began to turn in her direction. Taking a chance, Daniel darted in and landed a blow to his ribs. He almost got out of range again before a backhanded swing clipped his arm, once again opening the gash on Daniel's bicep. "_Ow! Damn that hurt! At this rate, Carolyn is going to have to staple the damn thing shut. Won't that be fun_." The good thing was, at least the ploy had gotten the big man's attention back on to him. The bad thing was, he was more determined to get his hands on him than ever.

_Sagira, if you're going to do something, sooner would be better._

His answer was the click of a switch and the sound of many barred doors sliding aside.

…...

Sam's hand tightened on the stock of her gun as she followed Ishaq deeper onto the compound. She knew it would be next to useless if they encountered any shielded Bast, but the familiar weight was comforting in its own way. This place was huge, going deeper into the cliff that what was on the surface suggested. She just hoped her guide knew where he was going. As if reading her thoughts, the young Bast glanced over his shoulder at her in what was probably supposed to be reassurance.

She got a sense that they were climbing, the air was becoming lighter and dryer, though there were no windows to the outside. The hallways were very wide, wider than they really needed to be and Sam couldn't help but wonder why. It sure wasn't due to volume of traffic, since she sure hadn't seen anyone else here. She saw that as a good thing considering what could be prowling the corridors.

She wondered about the absence of cameras here, when she was sure they were being filmed every second out in the jungle. Could it be that the Hunter never expected his prey to make it this far?

They were just passing a closed door when she smelled something very foreign to the jungle smells she had been surrounded by the past few days, but something so familiar to her that she often woke up with it still in her nose. The ozone and hot plastic smell of electronics.

She stopped and backtracked, tugging on Ishaq's tail to get his attention. He paused and turned, his head cocked questionably. Studying the door, she pressed the plate switch on the wall and brought her gun up to her shoulder as it slid open. The light came on automatically when she stepped cautiously in, and she jumped in alarm at the sight of a dark form with the telltale blinking lights of a control harness. She got the distinct feeling that Ishaq was laughing at her when he stepped past her into the room and walked up to a rack holding half a dozen empty harnesses.

Seeing the room was empty except for her amused guide, she eagerly went to examine the harnesses, curious to see how they worked, and, more importantly, how they could be turned off. There were electrodes going to pads on the underside of the harness that corresponded with all the main pressure points on a Bast's neck and chest. She had no idea exactly how the Bast were being controlled, unless it had something to do with a physical trait unique to them. One thing she did notice gave her hope. As she studied the circuitry, she found what looked like a small transmitter of some sort, which suggested that there might be something that communicated with all of them at once. Hopefully in the room that Ishaq was taking her to.

These were actually pretty simple devices, way less complicated than the things she usually worked on. She could dismantle them with a few snips. Now if only the hunters would hold still long enough….

Getting an idea, she quickly singled out the circuit that powered the small LED like lights, took out a small pair of wire cutters from her vest ,and cut everything around it.

She held the modified harness out to Ishaq. "Hey, come here for a moment and try this on."

Ishaq backed away from her with a nervous whine.

"It's okay, I promise. I turned everything off except the lights. Now it's just a really, really fancy accessory."

He gave her a sour look, ears laid flat against his head.

"Well, I'd offer to try it on first, but it's really not my style, you know. Come on, trust me. If you have this on, we won't attract as much attention. If anyone comes across us, you can pretend like you caught me and are taking me somewhere."

He snorted and looked pointedly at her guns.

"Ok, so we'll figure that part out later. It'll work, really." She used the wheedling tone she used to use with her cat. "Please?"

Ishaq sighed gustily and walked over to her. Though every inch of his body showed his opinion of this plan, he let her buckle the harness on him. Then they both sat and stared at each other for a moment, as if expecting something to happen. "So? Feel anything? Getting a sudden urge to eat me or anything now?

Ishaq shook his head.

"Oh. Good, I got it right."

…...

It turned out that they never got to test out the ruse, for the hall remained deserted all the way to what seemed to be the compound's main control room. She wished she could ask him how he knew his way around so well, but while they were doing pretty good communicating with each other, she needed Daniel for the complicated stuff.

The control room turned out to be a surprisingly small chamber with three consoles, about the size of her lab back home. She let the door slide shut behind her and sat down on a very low stool, her eyes scanning the computer systems. Bugger. Everything was in a language she didn't recognize, and she'd seen a few over the years. This was going to be interesting.

"I don't suppose you can read, can you?" she asked the creature looming over her shoulder watching her every move with interest.

Ishaq snorted and shook his head.

"Well, it was worth a shot." She should be able to figure this out, after all, she had figured out alien computers without really knowing the language before. She couldn't read or speak much Goa'uld or Asgard, but she used their technology all the time. She could do this. She got to work connecting system functions with symbols to get a rough idea of what did what.

Unfortunately, she was just getting the hang of it when she was interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open.

She had barely enough time to register the fact that two huge Bast had just entered the room when a heavy weight hit her from the side, knocking her off her stool and pressing her onto the floor. Her heart began to hammer in her chest as she looked up at Ishaq standing above her. His teeth were bared and an ugly snarl was bubbling up from his throat. The hard, detached look in his eyes was the same as the first time she had seen him, right before he had chased them up that tree.

A million thoughts were going through her head, chief of which was that she had gotten something wrong with the harness, and that being in close proximity to another had activated it. Even worse was that he had been playing them from the start, that all the Bast had, thus putting Vala and Daniel in danger as well.

The two hunters stalked into the room, rumbling deep in their chests. Ishaq snarled back, muttering something in the Bast's language. An argument started between Ishaq and one of the older hunters. All the while Sam was trapped between Ishaq's battered front paws, which, the part of her brain that wasn't gibbering in panic noticed, still smelled faintly of the disinfectant she had used on them.

Finally the older male jerked his head in a "well get on with it" motion and sat down, his partner following his lead. Ishaq lowered his head and nosed her throat, growling. She met his eyes, shivering as she imagined what was about to happen. For a moment his eyes softened.

And he gave her a slow, deliberate wink.

She stared back at him for a second, not quite believing what she had just seen, when he seized her throat in his teeth. She squeaked in terror before she realized that, while his enormous mouth had completely engulfed her neck, he was not exerting one iota of pressure. In fact, as soon as his fangs touched her skin, he backed off slightly.

Oh, he really was clever. Reassured that her new friend had a plan, her mind began to work again. She began to struggle weakly, putting her hands on either side of his head as if trying to pry him off. Ishaq growled savagely and bunched the muscles in his jaw, while in reality his tongue snaked down to caress her skin gently. She gasped loudly, making it sound like she was being strangled. Her gasps got weaker and weaker until they died off all together and she laid still, holding her breath, limp in Ishaq's grip.

The two hunters nodded in satisfaction, spoke briefly, and exited the room. The door slid shut.

Ishaq instantly let go and nuzzled Sam's face, making urgent little noises. When she opened her eyes, he lost all pretense at dignity and ran his tongue up the side of her face in excitement. "Thanks a lot," she said, wiping herself off. But she sat up and wrapped her arms around his neck. "That was an incredible acting job. You had me convinced for a second there."

He puffed out his chest proudly.

She climbed slowly back onto her stool and tried to settle her still racing heart. That had been way too close. She wondered how everyone else was doing. With a worried sigh, she went back to studying the technology.

…...

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**Whoo! This is the product of me getting over some killer writer's block. Sorry it took me so long to wrap this up, but better late than never.**

**Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.**

**...**

"Hey, Teal'c," Mitchell whispered. "You'd tell me if we were going in circles, right?"

"I would indeed tell you. That, however, is not the case at this moment."

"You're sure? I'm just mentioning it 'cause this wall looks mighty familiar."

"I am sure."

"Fine, so long as you're sure."

Cam chuckled to himself as Teal'c sighed in mock annoyance. He knew the Jaffa wouldn't lead them in circles, trusted him without question in fact. He just took a sort of perverse pleasure in tweaking the big guy. Teal'c knew this, and seemed to take just as much pleasure in returning the favor at the most inopportune moments.

Usually in a room full of people, just as Cam was putting food in his mouth.

They eased around another corner to find themselves in a hallway that looked unsurprisingly like the half-dozen others they had passed through. The same gray/brown stone walls and ceiling, with a dim light fixture placed at even intervals. Not a door in sight. The only upside to all of this was that there were also no snarling, bullet-proof mutts around to break up the monotony.

_Man, I hate this. This place is a frigg'in maze. I hope Carter and Jackson are having more luck than we are._

Teal'c looked around at his soft growl of frustration with a slight smile. "This is a most disconcerting place, is it not, Colonel Mitchell?"

"Yup. Never liked mazes, not even the corn mazes my parents took me to as a kid. Something about being this turned around never settled right with me. Think all this is on purpose?"

"Indeed. It would ensure that any who made it this far would be unlikely to find their way to the Hunter's private residences and workrooms. It would also make it easy for his beasts to ambush them."

"No kidding. I bet the Bast use scent to get around this place. Could be some following us right now."

"I have little doubt that they know we are here."

Cam grimaced. "Now there's a comforting thought. Let's keep moving."

They continued on like this for what seemed like hours, though every time Cam looked at his watch he found that only a couple of minutes had passed since the last time he looked at it. After the fifth time of this, he yanked his watch off and crammed it into a pocket just to remove the temptation. This place was getting to him. He thought they might be moving up, but it was so slow going that he couldn't be sure. All he could do was follow Teal'c to wherever he was leading them and try to keep hold of his sanity.

A few (hundred) turns later, and they were met with the welcome sight of an open doorway, warm light streaming welcomingly through it. The two men eased their way closer, hugging the walls on either side. As they came close to the door, Teal'c silently pointed out the trip wire stretched across at shin level. Cam grimaced and wondered how many people had just rushed through like idiots and gotten their heads blown off.

A cautious head poke into the room found it echoingly vast and seemingly deserted. Cam and Teal'c nodded and both stepped over the wire and entered, weapons ready. Cam took a second to study this new place.

What he first noticed was that the room was enormous. It was larger than the Gateroom back home. There were two levels to it, the one they were on, and an arena like floor below, divided by half a dozen wide stone steps. Enormous skylights in the ceiling showed a sky slightly lightening into dawn, but most of the light in the room came from panels interspersed along the walls. Like the rest of the building, everything here appeared to have been carved from the cliff itself rather than assembled in any way.

A low growling behind them interrupted his inspection of his surroundings as two Bast came up the hallway he and Teal'c had just left. The lights on their harnesses winked eerily in the dim light.

"Damn, I was hoping Carter would have done something about that by now."

"Indeed."

The hunters stepped gracefully over the trip wire and advanced on them. They began to back up until they were at the edge of the first step leading down. Cam was wondering why they hadn't been attacked yet when he realized they were being herded. "I guess we're supposed to go down there. Man, I hope this isn't going to be a Gladiator kind of thing."

As they reached the open floor, a door slid open on the far side and a sort of electric wheelchair glided through. In it was the wizened old man they had met earlier. Except he seemed a whole lot older when you weren't looking at him on a screen. A blanket covered shrunken legs, but Cam could see the reminders of the powerful man he must have once been.

At his side paced a young Bast, barely the size of a golden retriever. A thick collar and stout lead attached to the chair itself was the only thing keeping it there, if it's body language was anything to go on. The chaise stopped several feet away from them, and the old man studied them intently. Taking in the whole picture of the old man sitting back in his chair with his fingers steepled Burns-like, Cam lost it and started laughing.

The old man raised an eyebrow. "I must say, that's the first time I've ever gotten that reaction from my prey. Please tell me what you find so amusing."

Cam took a moment to catch his breath. "Sorry, just I always have these great expectations from the bad guys we meet, and then you turn out to look just like the villain in every cheesy spy movie I've ever seen. Come on T, back me up here."

"I too see the similarity, Colonel Mitchell. I recall several such characters from our last movie marathon. The one containing a man named Austin Powers, I believe it was."

The old mad tightened his lips at them as that last statement set Cam off again.

"Whoo! I needed that," Cam said at last, wiping his eyes.

"How did your kind ever defeat the Goa'uld?" the hunter asked, bemusedly.

"The Ori were a hell of a lot tougher than the snakeheads. You should count yourself lucky a Prior never wandered through your 'gate and played your game. Oh yeah, about that game, here we are. What do we win?"

"You two?" the old man exclaimed in surprise. "You haven't been prey yet. You didn't cross the valley, so you win nothing. The three who started two days ago are not here, and they only have an hour to go. But-," and the man frowned." Since they had help, they will have lost anyway. I'm afraid you all will be my guests for the foreseeable future due to the trouble you have caused me."

Cam put on his best innocent face. "Help? What help?"

"Oh, I know very well what kind of help you've had."

He gestured toward a door on the opposite wall than where they had entered, through which three Bast were herding Carter and a snarling Ishaq ahead of them. Sam gave him a grim look as their captors forced them down the stairs and grouped them together in the middle of the room.

"I'm guessing you couldn't find the off switch," Cam muttered as Sam was pressed up against his back.

"Nope. Found every other system but the command controls for the harnesses. They caught us just as Ishaq was going to show me a different room."

Cam glanced down at the young Bast, who was still making threatening noises at both the hunter and the circling males. Cam could practically feel his growls vibrating through his body when he pressed up against his legs for a moment. Carted had to have rigged the harness he was wearing, since he was obviously still on their side.

The Hunter shook his head sadly. "You disappoint me," he said, looking at Ishaq. " You could have been as great as your sire. A fine hunter, it was a shame to lose him last year. Luckily I have more of his line to train up." He stroked the cub at his side, who whimpered and tried to get to the older Bast. Only Carter's hand gripping the loose skin on his neck kept the enraged Ishaq from lunging at the old man.

What happened next made all of them want to join Ishaq in jumping the smug old man.

"And here comes the instigator of this little rebellion now." Yet another door, this time on the ground level, slid open and another Bast stepped through.

Clinging to his back was Vala.

It was obvious from the bruises on her arms and face, not to mention the distinctly ruffled appearance of her mount, that she hadn't gotten up there willingly. The familiar set of her mouth told him she had gone passed annoyed and was now fully in the realm of pissed beyond all reason.

The reason for this became apparent as three more Bast came in dragging an unconscious Eshe between them. Covered in deep gashes, missing an ear and huge patches of skin, it was amazing she was still alive. Cam had to look closely to see her ribcage jerking up and down as she breathed shallowly. The old matriarch had also not come quietly and had been torn to ribbons for her efforts, though some deep wounds on the males carrying her showed that the old girl had still had some fight in her.

The male carrying Vala gave a violent shake, sending the woman tumbling off with a pained yelp as her injured leg landed on the stone. There was a sickening thud as Eshe's body was also unceremoniously dropped to the ground. Carter gasped and took a step in their direction, but was caught up short by lots of growling. Teal'c tensed as his hand tightened on his weapon in frustration. Vala slowly inched over to the old Bast and pulled her battered head into her lap, glaring daggers at the old man sitting serenely in his chair.

Well, that did it. Cam didn't care how old this guy was, he was going down.

"Cam," Carter whispered in his ear, shaking him out of his anger. "Look at the arms of his chair. There are control panels there. How much do you want to bet those are the ones we're looking for?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course they are. Like I said, I've seen this movie before. So how do we get to it?"

"No idea."

"I've been playing this game for far too long to lose to a bunch of insignificant humans and a group of my own animals," the Hunter was saying. "I have even defeated Gao'uld, the self proclaimed gods. There is nothing you can do that I haven't seen and countered."

"Yeah right. A true hunter would have done the work himself, rather than enslave a race to do it for you." Cam didn't bother to keep the contempt out of his voice. If only there was a way to get to that chair. Than the old windbag wouldn't be so confident.

Just as the old man was getting himself wound up again, the unmistakable report of a 9mm echoed in the room. The control panel on the arm of the chair exploded in a impressive shower of sparks, causing the man to jerk and curse with surprise, almost falling out of his seat. The cub squalled in fear and yanked the leash from suddenly slack fingers, scuttling across the room to cower behind Ishaq's front legs. Electricity arced and sputtered on each of the males harnesses, causing their wearers to yelp and whine, some of them falling to the ground as their muscles twitched in the current.

"Well, he didn't see that coming," Cam muttered. " I was wondering when he'd show up."

Standing at the top of the stairs was the cause of the all the commotion, an extremely miffed archaeologist. As usual, Jackson had been through the wars. He was filthy, covered head to toe in a fine black powder for some reason. Unfortunately, the dirt wasn't thick enough to hide the ugly, spreading bruise and split eyebrow that gave mute testament as to how he had lost his glasses this time. His bandana was tied tightly around his upper arm and dried blood was streaking down almost to his wrist. There was an unblinking, glacial look in his blue eyes, one that he only got when he was truly pissed. Sam called it "the Bedrosian stare".

All in all, he just looked like someone you didn't want to mess with at the moment. _Hell_, thought Cam. _He's one of my best friends, and _I_ don't want to mess with him right now._

And that was before Daniel's reinforcements showed up. Black shapes appeared and joined him at the top of the stairs until nearly two dozen Bast ranged on either side of him. He was flanked by Sagira and the largest Bast they had seen yet, a huge male who nearly stood eye to eye with the archaeologist's six foot frame. He roared in fury, his gaze fixed solidly on Eshe, and the old hunter, still trying to recover some composure, visibly blanched at the sound.

"You!" he screamed at Daniel. " What have you done?"

Daniel smirked, but there was no humor in it. "I just always seem to get caught up in rebellions somehow. I don't know why. Oh by the way, my side usually wins."

The old man glanced around. All his hunters were regaining control of their bodies, shaking their heads with confused moans. Cam saw with relief that their eyes had turned to the Bast's normal shade of green-brown, rather than the cold yellow orbs of those being controlled.

And as one, those eyes all turned toward the old man now cowering in his chair.

He began to desperately punch at the ruined controls, yelling, " Rolan! Rolan!"

Daniel started down the stairs toward him, his huge shadows at his side. "If Rolan happens to be your assistant, I'm afraid he wont be joining us. He's taking a little nap down in one of the cells."

With angry growls, every Bast closed in on their long time captor. Cam stepped forward, not knowing what he could do against a whole bunch of righteously angry beings with big teeth, but he just couldn't let the old man, no matter how much he deserved it, be ripped to shreds right in front of him. Luckily, Daniel beat him to it. He started talking to them in a soothing manner in their native tongue, touching them on the shoulder or back as he walked between them, making his way to where Vala and Eshe were. The rest of the team didn't know what he was saying, but it seemed to work. Slowly, one by one, they began to relax.

One big harnessed male stepped up to within a few inches of the frail man, studied him for a moment, and deliberately sneezed in his face. The rest of the clan growled and muttered in approval, and Cam was reminded of something he had once read about some Native American practices. The Bast had just counted coup on his enemy. The once mighty hunter was reduced to what he really was, a harmless old man.

Cam couldn't help but grin at that. "I guess we won after all, " he said, and let the old man stew impotently in his chair, guarded by a couple youngsters to keep him out of trouble. "Teal'c, why don't you get these two to show you where those cells are and stash our friend with his assistant. We can decide what to do with him later."

Teal'c nodded. " A good and fitting idea, Colonel Mitchell." The two young Bast puffed their chests with importance and trotted toward the lower door, Teal'c following behind, pushing the chair with it's occupant protesting the entire way.

Sam had already rushed over to their injured friends, trailed by Ishaq, Sagira, and the huge male that had arrived with Daniel. The archaeologist himself had collapsed on the floor next to Vala, looking pretty worn out. The two looked bad, but Cam knew they would live. His main worry was for the old girl who had helped them from the start.

The damage to his friend was much worse up close. Cam had seen some pretty horrific injuries in his time. Some had even been to himself. But this was about as torn up as a living thing could be and still actually be alive. Carter had her first aid kit out, but the standard bandages and butterfly strips seemed woefully inadequate in dealing with wounds he could practically fit his hand into. Eshe's breathing was rapid and shallow, and even the worried nudges from her grandchildren didn't rouse her.

"I don't think this stuff is going to help much, "Sam said, echoing his thoughts. " She needs some serious medical treatment. I might just be delaying the inevitable." Regardless, she began to pack gauze into the wounds and tape them up as best she could..

"Well, we have to do something, "Vala said shakily. "They caught us as we were between hiding places. She was trying to protect me. She was outnumbered, but she never quit."

Daniel squeezed her shoulder. "We'll do everything we can." The giant Bast moaned and rubbed his head against Daniel's shoulder. "I know, Abasi. Oh, everyone, this is Abasi, Eshe's mate. He was being kept in a cell separate from the rest of the clan. Evidently he was a little too strong willed to make a good hunter. Sagira freed him while I was, ah, occupied."

"Occupied? Is this the part where you tell us how you got all banged up? Cam wanted to hear this story.

"I had some issues with that servant of his. He got in a few good hits." He touched the side of his face gingerly. "He had neutralized Sagira, but she managed to get the cell doors open. The guy didn't stand a chance after that. I convinced them not to kill him, knocked him out and shoved him in a cell."

Cam reached over and swiped his hand down the sleeve of Daniel's shirt. It came away black. "What is this stuff?"

"Coal dust. I told the Bast that we needed to get up here as fast as possible, and they led me to some kind of coal chute. I had to rock chimney climb up it. I guess the Bast have been using it to secretly move around for some time."

"Well, all I have to say is damn good timing, and damn good shot. I don't know if I could have listened to the old fart much longer. Carter, how's our girl doing?"

"Still alive, somehow. I think I have the worst of the bleeding stopped, but she needs a lot more. She's probably pretty shocky at the moment. We need to find a fast way to the 'gate or some other kind of treatment, or she's not going to make it."

As if the fates had herd her, their radios crackled a moment later. "_SG-1, this is Odyssey, do you copy? I repeat, this Odyssey calling SG-1, do you copy?"_

They all looked at each other in surprise for a moment before Cam thumbed his radio. "Yeah Odyssey, we read you loud and clear. How did you guys get back here so fast?"

General Smithton's humor filled voice came over the mike. "We're probably going to get some complaints about how fast we hustled our passengers off, but I had the feeling you were going to need some backup. Though I think those people were so happy to be warm again that they probably didn't even notice when we left. Colonel Carter's message was a good enough excuse to dump them and get back here as fast as we could."

Sam looked up from her work as her team stared at her. "What? I told you I had found everything **but** the harness controls, didn't I?"

Cam shook his head, wondering why he even tried to keep up with her. "Well, we're sure glad you came, sir. We're going to need that ride after all. We have some wounded here, two of my team and a native."

"We'll bring them up and have a medic team ready. Stand by."

"Thank you, sir." Before Daniel could do more than open his mouth, Cam shushed him. "Compared to the rest of us, you are not fine, so I don't want to hear about it. Go with Vala and the lady here and make sure they get treated right. The rest of us will deal with any loose ends here."

Daniel gave him a sour look, but didn't argue. Even if Cam didn't want him to get checked out, he was the best person to have there if Eshe woke up. He and Vala held on to the wounded Bast, and a moment later were whisked away by a bright light.

And the rest of the team were left to deal with a room full of deliriously happy Bast.

Sam held her wire cutters up. "Anyone who needs a harness taken off, come over here." At once, all the hunters clustered around her. She was going to be very popular for awhile.

Cam was going to go help her, when his radio crackled again. "Mitchell," he responded.

Major Marks's voice came over. "Colonel Mitchell. I think you better get up here. We're having a bit of a situation."

Cam rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He turned to Carter. "Ok, you keep an eye on things down here. I guess I'm going up to deal with a "situation". He thumbed his radio. "I'm ready."

When he arrived on the bridge of the Odyssey, he found himself right smack in the middle of a full on shouting match between the ship's head doctor and a pissed off archaeologist. A med team was seeing to Vala, or rather trying to, but she kept batting their hands away and pushing them toward where Eshe was lying, still unconscious, on the cold deck. Smithton was trying to get some order, but the two men weren't paying attention to anything around them, and he was starting to get annoyed. Generals were not used to being ignored. The rest of the bridge crew had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching the chaos in startled surprise.

"I told you, Doctor Jackson, I am not a vet. I wouldn't know the first thing about treating an animal like this."

Cam was impressed when the man held his ground as Daniel loomed over him, that look in his eyes again. "And I told you, this is not an animal. She is a sentient being and an ally. You've had both Jaffa and Asgard on this ship before, this is no different. And the longer you stand here arguing with me, the less her chances are."

The doctor opened his mouth, but Cam stepped in before Daniel could verbally flay the man alive. "Now Jackson, I'm sure the good doctor wasn't suggesting that he would actually refuse to treat our friend, " he said, joining his teammate in staring the man down. "Were you?"

General Smithton joined them. "Of course he wasn't. " He gave the man a stern look. "Were you, Major?"

The doctor looked from the twin pair of ice blue eyes glaring at him to the uncompromising look on the General's face, and calmed down. He turned to his team. "Alright, let's get these two ..patients.. on gurneys and get them to the sick bay." He turned to Daniel and nodded apologetically. "You too, Doctor Jackson."

Daniel, being the man he was, nodded back, accepting the gesture for what it was. "I'll be along." The doctor hurried after his team.

"Don't be too hard on him, Doctor Jackson. He's a good man, but a little new to all this, and I think he just panicked a bit," said Smithton.

Daniel smiled slightly. "We were all new at this at some point, sir. You either learn some flexibility, or you don't survive. He should get it soon. I'd better get down there before Eshe wakes up or Vala breaks something." He nodded to the General and walked wearily toward the door.

"Good man you got there, Colonel," Smithton said as the archaeologist left the bridge.

"One of the best, " Cam agreed.

…...

They were in surgery for over two hours with Eshe, closing the horrible wounds and removing an eye that had turned out to be too badly damaged to repair. Vala's leg was cleaned up and she was put on some IV antibiotics just in case of some other kind of infection. It seemed that a friendship of sorts had sparked between the old matriarch and the ex-thief during their hours of hiding, and Vala sat next to the low bed they had put the Bast on to recover, her legs and body supported by pillows.

Daniel sat on a bed nearby, watching quietly. Every so often, Vala would reach out a hand and stroke the silky black hide someplace not covered in bandages. Every time she did this, Daniel smiled. He like to see this softer side to his friend. It was so different from the Vala they usually saw. It was a Vala he could easily come to love.

The young doctor approached him somewhat warily, and Daniel smiled at him. "It's ok. I don't bite. You did a good job there." He nodded toward the sleeping Bast.

"Thank you, sir. I just wanted to apologize for the way I was acting. This whole idea of space travel and aliens is pretty new to me. I've only been with the SGC for a few months."

"The General said as much. Apology accepted. How are her chances."

"Surprisingly good. Her vitals remained weak but stable throughout the surgery. There's some muscle damage that's always going to be there, but she should be able to get around all right. She's a tough old thing."

"Luckily. I wanted to ask you, would it be all right to bring her family up to see her. According to my teammates, they're pretty anxious."

The doctor smiled. "I don't see why not. It's not like they aren't housebroken, right?"

His grin widened, and Daniel took it for the joke it was. "Right. I'll just go ask the General."

He made to leave, but the doctor stopped him. "First I need to see that you're all set. How's that arm?"

"It's fine. Doctor Lam will want to check it out when we get home, but it doesn't feel too bad right now."

While Eshe had been in surgery, a nurse had expertly cleaned and stitched his arm and eyebrow. They would scar, and he knew Jack was going to give him grief about how they matched now. He'd had a shower, a change of clothes and a cup of coffee, and was feeling human for the first time in days. The rest of SG-1 had rotated between coming aboard to clean up and get a bite to eat, and staying on the planet with the Bast. He was due to go down and talk with them. If they wanted to, Smithton had already offered to take the clan home to its ancestral home, just as soon as Sam found the location in the Hunter's database.

The Hunter and his servant would be released from their cells and allowed to remain in their compound.

But the Odyssey would be taking the Stargate with her.

…..

The bridge crew were noticeably nervous when Sam beamed up with Abasi, Ishaq, and Sagira. It was one thing when the Bast was unconscious on the floor. It was quite another when faced with three huge predators looking around them with keen interest. As they made their way toward sick bay, personnel hugged the wall to get out of their path.

Daniel, who had met them on the bridge, got the impression that the Bast were deriving a great deal of amusement from it.

Abasi cantered across the room as soon as he caught sight of his mate. He sniffed at her bandages and tenderly licked the top of her head. He looked at Daniel.

*She will be well?*

*Yes, the healer told me she will recover. She will be weak when she walks, and she lost an eye, but she will be healthy.*

Abasi crooned his pleasure as he settled down to keep vigil with Vala, his grandchildren at his side. The medical staff slowly moved closer, touched by the obvious care these creatures had for each other.

An hour later, Eshe began to show signs that she was coming around, and opened her eye to the excited faces of her family. She caught sight of Daniel and gave him an amused, one eyed wink.

*Plenty fight left.*

…...

Three days later, the Odyssey was heading home, having relocated the Bast to their home world. Daniel and Sam had beamed down with Sagira and Abasi near a settlement, to be met by a boisterous mixed group of humans and Bast. When Daniel explained the situation, they were delighted to welcome their lost kin home. Eshe had made remarkable progress, and when the clan walked down the ramp to set foot on their native soil for the first time in generations, the battle-scared old matriarch was with them, supported by her mate on one side and her grandson on the other. The Partners would continue her healing.

There were some fond goodbyes, for the entire crew had become fond of the cheerful, intelligent, Bast. The Tau'ri had made some good friends, and after they got the gate address, promised to come and visit.

SG-I had gone directly home via Stargate, and having been debriefed and checked out, were gathered in Daniels office.

"So, what's on the agenda? We got the next few days off, courtesy of Landry. What's everyone going to do?" Cam asked.

"Well, Vala and I are going to have a girls day out tomorrow. Spa and shopping." Sam grinned. "Why, want to come?"

"Yeah, pass. Guys, we need to counter that with some testosterone. I've got extra tickets to the football game. T, football?"

"I believe I will. Air Force has fought well this season."

"Awesome. Jackson?"

"Sure, why not. I have a lot of work here to catch up on, but that's why I have assistants."

Cam backed away from the archeologist slowly. Carter, call a lockdown. There's a pod person here that looks like Jackson."

They all laughed as Daniel rolled his eyes tolerantly.

"So how about we get together at my place after the game for a movie night? There's this old movie I've been wanting to see. It's got Fay Wray in it. Always easy on the eyes. It's called The Most Dangerous Game.

A moment later he was being chased out of the office by Sam and Daniel throwing pens at him.

"What! What did I say?"

…...

Fin

**In case you didn't get that last part, The Most Dangerous Game was the story I based this off of.****J**** They actually did make a movie out of it. It wasn't bad. **


End file.
